Great Crested Grebe | ScienceGate

The total mercury concentrations in four tissues (muscle, intestines, liver and kidney) of aquatic birds (cormorant – Phalacrocorax carbo and great crested grebe – Podiceps cristatus) and Eurasian buzzard (Buteo buteo) were determined by cold vapour atomic absorption spectrometry (CV-AAS) using an Advanced Mercury Analyser AMA 254. The results of the direct CV-AAS analyses of homogenised solid samples were in very good agreement with those obtained by CV-AFS and CV-AAS analyses after acid digestion. Mercury concentrations in the tested tissues of adult populations of great crested grebe and cormorant were nearly twice as high as in the Eurasian buzzard. Significantly higher mercury concentrations were found in the liver and kidney of the cormorant (7-times and 2-times, respectively) compared to great crested grebe. The highest mercury concentration (39.2 mg/kg DM) was found in liver of adult population of cormorant while the content of mercury in younger cormorants was approx. 6-times lower (5.8 mg/kg DM). The total mercury concentration in liver was 6-times higher (2–3-times in muscle and kidney) but 13-times lower then those of the cormorant population living in Japan (Tokyo, Lake Biwa) and in the United States (Nevada, Carson River), respectively.

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Stymphalian and Other birds

The Journal of Hellenic Studies ◽

10.2307/631228 ◽

1976 ◽

Vol 96 ◽

pp. 146-146 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J. K. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Breeding Ground ◽

Marsh Vegetation ◽

Reed Beds ◽

Marsh Bird ◽

Floating Platforms ◽

Great Crested Grebe

Miss Sylvia Benton, in a recent note, identifies the bird which appears on some of the coins of Stymphalos ‘rising above the leaves of a Water Plantain … with a Fritillary on either side… The bird wears ear-flaps, and for me a marsh bird with earflaps must be meant for the Great Crested Grebe’.This identification seems to me convincing, though the bill as represented on the coins is perhaps rather short and thick. On April 29th and May 23rd 1974 I visited Stymphalos, in company with my family, in the hope of confirming that the Lake is still within the Grebe's range. This we were unable to do, and I am delighted to learn from Mr Buxton's note that ‘the bird breeds now on the Stymphalian lake’.The Lake certainly offers in its extensive reed-beds a most suitable breeding-ground for Grebes, which build partly floating platforms of marsh vegetation to serve as nests. Adult birds sleep on the water and are fish-eaters. Grebes cannot therefore have suggested the different literary variants of this Labour of Herakles.

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