Slavonian Grebe

Podiceps auritus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Name in other languages

Slavonian Grebes breed occasionally on remote lakes in the steppe, forest-steppe, and southern taiga zones. Vagrant birds have been recorded on the Yenisey as far north as 62° N.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the species occurred in all forest-steppe areas as well as in the Minusinsk region and in the western part of the Minusinsk depression (Sushkin 1914; Tugarinov 1927). S. M. Prokofyev (1984) recently discovered new breeding sites in northern Khakasia. Numbers are low and are decreasing due to anthropogenic influences. The species is known also to occur near Mirnoye (62° 15' N) in Yenisey mid taiga. In late May 1984, P.E. Kopytov, a forest guard, found a Slavonian Grebe on a small floodplain lake on the eastern side of the Yenisey, three km north of Mirnoye. In mid September 1986, P.G. Khokhlov, a hunter, collected an individual near Bakhta, 20 km north of Mimoye. And in September 1990, a flock of 5 young birds was discovered on the Yenisey between Bakhta and Mimoye. The species is included in the Red Data Book of the Krasnoyarsk territory.

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