Horned Grebe

Horned Grebe

Podiceps auritus

Silhouette: Doug Backlund (photo), John E. McCormack, Michael G. Harvey, Brant C. Faircloth, Nicholas G. Crawford, Travis C. Glenn, Robb T. Brumfield & T. Michael Keesey · PhyloPic

LCNTVUVulnerableENCR
Daily sighting probability <5% · Rare
at Belgrade

In 3 days <5% in a week ~10%

17 Verified sightings at Belgrade
4,944 In all 26 parks From 2019 to 2026
December Best month
☀️ Diurnal When it's spotted

About the Horned Grebe

The horned grebe or Slavonian grebe (Podiceps auritus) is a relatively small and threatened species of waterbird in the family Podicipedidae. The Eurasian subspecies is distributed over most of northern Europe and northern Asia, breeding from Iceland east to the Russian Far East. The North American subspecies spans most of Canada and some of the United States. A small population was cited in Greenland in 1973, but is not mapped or further mentioned by subsequent authors.

The American name 'horned' refers to the orange-yellow crest feathers located above and behind the eyes, called "horns". The English name, originally 'Sclavonian', is first attested by George Montagu in his 1802 Ornithological Dictionary, from Scalovia, an old name for northern Prussia, referring to the species' main breeding area in Europe; the spelling was emended (without any reason given) to the current 'Slavonian' by Hartert in 1912.

The horned grebe was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema... Wikipedia →

Sounds

Mating call0:54

Sweden · 2026

© Dag Österlund · XC1145297 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Call0:41

United Kingdom · 1993

© Simon Elliott · XC590662 · CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Song0:31

Norway · 2006

© Karl-Birger Strann · XC401780 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Global Distribution

Parks Where Found

# Park Country Daily sighting probability
1 Pacific Rim National Park Reserve 🇨🇦 Canada
~20%
2 Great Bear Rainforest 🇨🇦 Canada
~20%
3 Elk Island National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
~10%
4 Point Pelee National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
~10%
5 Wrangell-St. Elias National Park 🇺🇸 United States
~10%
6 Kluane National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
~10%
7 Olympic National Park 🇺🇸 United States
~10%
8 Redwood National Park 🇺🇸 United States
~10%
9 Acadia National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
10 Banff National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
<5%
11 Katmai National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
12 Denali National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
13 Channel Islands National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
14 Voyageurs National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
15 Jasper National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
<5%
16 Vatnajokull National Park 🇮🇸 Iceland
<5%
17 Riding Mountain National Park 🇨🇦 Canada
<5%
18 Wadden Sea National Park 🇩🇪 Germany
<5%
19 Snowdonia National Park 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
<5%
20 Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
21 Grand Teton National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
22 Camargue 🇫🇷 France
<5%
23 Cairngorms National Park 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
<5%
24 Glacier National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
25 Yellowstone National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
26 Shenandoah National Park 🇺🇸 United States
<5%

Cities Where Found

# City Country Daily sighting probability
1 Seattle 🇺🇸 United States
~10%
2 San Francisco 🇺🇸 United States
~10%
3 Vancouver 🇨🇦 Canada
~10%
4 Calgary 🇨🇦 Canada
~10%
5 Saint Petersburg 🇷🇺 Russia
~10%
6 Kazan 🇷🇺 Russia
<5%
7 Chicago 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
8 Helsinki 🇫🇮 Finland
<5%
9 Baltimore 🇺🇸 United States
<5%
10 Toronto 🇨🇦 Canada
<5%

Before you go

What are the chances of seeing a Horned Grebe in Belgrade?

Rare

Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Horned Grebe sighting in Belgrade on a given day, based on 17 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 113th most-seen of the 144 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, and over a week to about 10%, if each day is a fresh chance.

When is the best time to see a Horned Grebe in Belgrade?

December

In that month about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Horned Grebe in Belgrade on a given day, against under 5% in January to November, the lowest months.

What time of day is best to see a Horned Grebe?

Between 4 and 7 pm

Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Horned Grebe sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.

Is Belgrade the best place to see a Horned Grebe?

27th of 44

Of the 44 cities where we can rate Horned Grebe sightings, Belgrade ranks 27th at under 5%. The best odds are in Seattle (United States, about 10%), San Francisco (United States, about 10%) and Vancouver (Canada, about 10%).

Where does the Horned Grebe sighting chance come from?

GBIF citizen-science records

It is estimated from how often the Horned Grebe is recorded against all the birds logged in Belgrade (17 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.

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