John Arvin, our Research Coordinator, casually asked yesterday if any of us had ever seen a grebe in flight. Honestly, I'd never thought about it. And, no I haven't. And he doesn't know anyone who has (in 55 years of birding). Grebes are obviously nocturnal migrants, and they have great difficulty taking flight. The process involves a long run across the water, much like an airplane taxiing down the runway. There are instances of migrating birds coming down on land, and being unable to take off again. When disturbed, grebes dive under water.
As always, when confronted with this sort of question, I immediately went online to look for answers, in this case, photos of flying grebes. I found two in an hour of searching, and one was barely large enough to identify. The other was a Little Grebe from the Phillipines. You can see that here. It might be fun next spring to set up a camera near a pond with grebes, wait, and see if I can get lucky.
If you know of anyone who has a photo of a grebe in flight, I'd love to see it. Please email me.
Photo by Greg Lavaty