Podicipedidae Grebes

Grebes are foot-propelled divers specialized for life on and under water: their legs are set so far back on their bodies that they are unable to walk on land, and their lobed toes fold into a blade that glides through the water on every upstroke. Grebes rocket through the water by compressing water behind them with coordinated thrusts of their muscular legs. With their eerie eyes of intense scarlet-orange, floating nests, synchronized aquatic courtship dances, and a habit of filling their stomachs with their own feathers, which they feed to their young. These birds grow more beguiling the more you study them. To their peril, flightless species of grebes have arisen multiple times in large stable lakes.