The black-necked grebe is a rare winter visitor to coastal areas from October to March. It used to breed here on well vegetated lakes in western Ireland. The make has distinctive ochre-coloured breeding plumage with the rest of the upper parts coloured black or dark brown. The non-breeding plumage is greyish-black. The black-necked grebe feeds mostly on insects, caught on the surface of water or in flight. It also eats foliage, crustaceans, molluscs, tadpoles, small frogs and fish. It makes a floating cup nest on an open lake which is covered with a disc.

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The black-necked grebe travels as much as 6,000 kilometers during migration. After migration the bird moults, at which point it is unable to fly for about two months.

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It is red-listed in Ireland due to sever decline in the breeding population.

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Image (c) by Andreas Trepte used under Creative Commons License BY-SA 2.5.