I see this bird regularly in the lake at Lysterfield but had no concept of its real size till yesterday. I thought it was a small bird and I could only go by what I saw – its head, neck and top of its back. It didn’t look any bigger than the small black cormorants really. But yesterday I saw this bird in the distance on the beach preening itself and it looked like a Darter Bird from a distance. I thought I’d not seen one at the lake before – only up at Lilydale so I moved in for a closer look, taking shots every few steps, in case it flew away. In fact, I got much closer than I thought I might and was very surprised when I discovered it was the Great Crested Grebe, and indeed, much larger than I’d originally thought. Naturally I was delighted. I did see it last week with a bub but no sign of the bub yesterday, just three adults in different places.

Please forgive the graininess of the shot – it was before the sun had risen and I wasn’t close enough to use a flash – I had to stick with my long lens and a low shutterspeed – as low as I dared without a tripod.