Familiar to most North American birders in its black-and-white winter plumage, the Horned Grebe is more striking in its red-and-black breeding feathers which we usually see when they pass through our area in the spring.
Its "horns" are yellowish patches of feathers behind its eyes that it can raise and lower at will.
The Horned Grebe regularly eats some of its own feathers, enough that its stomach usually contains a matted plug of them. This plug may function as a filter or may hold fish bones in the stomach until they can be digested. The parents even feed feathers to their chicks to get the plug started early. Cornell All About Birds
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