Little Grebe

Tachybaptus ruficollis

Order: Podicipediformes
Family: Podicipedidae
Presence in the Strait: Resident
Abundance: common
Protection in Spain: Special protection (List)
In Spanish: Zampullín común

Photograph: Zinogre, CC BY-SA, vía iNaturalist

Length: 25–29 cm
Wingspan: 40–45 cm
Weight: 163 g

Presence in the Strait

Common resident of lagoons.

Identification

The smallest of the grebes, with dumpy body, dark coloured. In flight, lacks white on wings. It has a characteristic rattling and high pitched trill that betrays its presence.

Movements

Sedentary with influx of wintering birds. Prenuptial migration from February to April, with peaks in the 1st hf. March; postnuptial from end of August to December, with peaks in the 1st hf. November.

Bioestrecho editorial text. Last revised: 8 September 2026.

Photographs from iNaturalist observations with the licence checked file by file. Those marked “Strait” were taken within the area; place and date are those of each observation.

Calendar in the Strait

19 %

Peak in January. Observations under CC0 or CC BY licences. The distribution also reflects observation effort.

Where it is seen

Open records from the atlas database, in cells of about 3.6 km. Opacity follows the square root of the count, and also reflects where people observe most.

See on the map

First open record: 26 April 1975
Latest record: 22 February 2025

The oldest and the most recent open observation in the extended area. A recent first observation does not mean the species is new: it means nobody had published it openly before.

Conservation

The catalogues, Andalusian and Spanish, are what binds; the Red Book assesses the Spanish population with IUCN criteria, and the global Red List is the context.

LCNTVUENCR

Andalusian Catalogue: Special protection (List)
Spanish Catalogue: Special protection (List)
Red Book of the Birds of Spain 2021: LC · Least concern · breeding — LC · Least concern · wintering or migrating
Global Red List (IUCN): LC · Least concern

Andalusian Catalogue: Junta de Andalucía, list of 24 April 2025. Spanish Catalogue: MITECO, table of 30 June 2025. Red Book: SEO/BirdLife, 2021 (Annex I). IUCN: via GBIF, 6 September 2026. Red Book and IUCN categories are assessments; catalogue categories are legal obligations.

Phenology compared

Monthly distribution in proportion, by decade. It shows whether the passage is getting earlier or later.

1990–1999

2000–2009

2010–2026

Proportions, not totals: observation effort grew faster than any population.

Classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Podicipediformes
Family: Podicipedidae
GBIF taxon key: 2482048

Sources

Distribution and calendar: Bioestrecho's own database, ingested from GBIF and OBIS
Photograph: Zinogre, CC BY-SA, vía iNaturalist
Taxonomy: GBIF backbone, pending WoRMS for marine taxa
Editorial text: written by Bioestrecho
Last revised: 8 September 2026

Little Grebe

Presence in the Strait

Identification

Movements

Gallery