Bird

Horned Grebe

Podiceps auritus

A winter visitor to North Carolina, found in all 100 counties and 14 habitats.

Here: Winter and on migration
Nesting: Not known to nest here
Range: All 100 counties
Habitats: 14

Male Horned Grebe, whole bird — **Male**. (c) Lisa Wiencek Gerbec, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY. iNaturalist photo 16065549. iNaturalist large derivative; no local crop or retouch.

At a glance

Group: Birds
Here: Winter and on migration
Nesting: Not known to nest here
Range: All 100 counties
Habitats: 14
Habitat models: Winter

Where it lives

The places its habitat model includes. It is not found everywhere a habitat occurs.

Habitats in North Carolina 14

Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.

1 of 14

WinterCentral Interior and Appalachian Shrub-Herbaceous Wetland SystemsRegional / representative. Shown: Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Georgia; representative pond ecosystem, a neighboring state.Georgia pond and emergent wetland, Robert 'Bob' Hynes, 1997. Public domain. Source record.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Streamhead Seepage Swamp - Pocosin - and Baygall; Central Interior and Appalachian Swamp Systems; Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plain Swamp Systems; Atlantic Coastal Plain Southern Tidal Wooded Swamp; Atlantic Coastal Plain Clay-Based Carolina Bay Forested WetlandNamed place / source context. Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina, as titled by Museum of Fine Arts Boston; nineteenth-century artistic interpretationView, Dismal Swamp, North Carolina, Regis Francois Gignoux, 1850. Public domain. Source record.

Coastal dunes and beaches

Open sand of beaches, dunes and the hollows between them.

WinterUnconsolidated Shore (Beach/Dune); Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain Interdunal Wetland

Coastal tidal marshes (salinity not stated)

Tidal marshes of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts where the source does not say whether the water is fresh, brackish or salt. A stated salinity files the marsh under freshwater tidal marshes or salt and brackish marshes instead.

Winter

Depression ponds and limesinks

Shallow ponds in Coastal Plain depressions, such as limesinks and the ponds in some Carolina bays, that rise and fall with the seasons.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Clay-Based Carolina Bay Herbaceous Wetland; Atlantic Coastal Plain Depression Pondshore

Disturbed and introduced wetlands

Wet ground taken over by weedy or introduced plants after disturbance, such as common reed, Chinese tallow or tamarisk stands; the upland counterpart is roadsides, fields and disturbed ground.

Winter

Freshwater tidal marshes

Marshes along tidal rivers where the water is fresh but rises and falls with the tide.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Embayed Region Tidal Freshwater Marsh; Atlantic Coastal Plain Central Fresh-Oligohaline Tidal Marsh

Mountain bogs and fens

Wet, open, peaty mountain wetlands fed by seepage, often with sphagnum moss.

Winter

Pocosins and bay forests

Dense evergreen shrub wetlands and bay forests on wet, acid peat of the Coastal Plain.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Peatland Pocosin; Atlantic Coastal Plain Streamhead Seepage Swamp - Pocosin - and Baygall

Salt and brackish marshes

Coastal marshes flooded by salty or brackish tides.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Central Salt and Brackish Tidal Marsh; Atlantic Coastal Plain Embayed Region Tidal Salt and Brackish Marsh

Seeps and springs

Places where groundwater keeps the soil or rock wet, such as seepage slopes and spring runs.

WinterAtlantic Coastal Plain Streamhead Seepage Swamp - Pocosin - and Baygall

Sounds, bays and tidal flats

Salt and brackish open water of sounds, bays and estuaries, with the mud and sand flats and seagrass beds that tides cover and uncover; the vegetated marsh is salt and brackish marshes.

WinterOpen Water (Brackish/Salt)

Wet meadows

Open, wet, grassy or sedgy ground that is not a bog.

WinterCentral Interior and Appalachian Shrub-Herbaceous Wetland Systems

Other habitats in its models (16)

Land cover, or classes with no habitat page in North Carolina. Those recorded in North Carolina first, the rest by region.

Elsewhere in the South (9)

Atlantic Coastal Plain Indian River Lagoon Tidal Marsh Winter.
Central Florida Herbaceous Pondshore Winter.
Central Florida Herbaceous Seep Winter.
Floridian Highlands Freshwater Marsh Winter.
Mississippi Sound Salt and Brackish Tidal Marsh Winter.
Southern Coastal Plain Herbaceous Seepage Bog Winter.
Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp Winter.
Southern Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall Winter.
West Gulf Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall Winter.

Northeast (1)

Atlantic Coastal Plain Northern Fresh and Oligohaline Tidal Marsh Winter.

Land cover and other classes (6)

Open Water (Aquaculture) Winter.
Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp - Okefenokee Nupea Modifier Winter.
Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp - Okefenokee Pine Modifier Winter.
Texas-Louisiana Coastal Prairie Slough Winter.
Unconsolidated Shore Winter.
Unconsolidated Shore (Lake/River/Pond) Winter.

All habitats

Seasons in North Carolina

Migratory: does not nest here, in 63 of 100 counties.
Winter: does not nest here, in 56 of 100 counties.

Also found in its main habitats

Its main habitats in North Carolina, by how much of its habitat model each one is, with the birds most characteristic of each and the plants that grow wild there. Shared habitat, not food.