Michael Brooke's charming centennial reappraisal of Julian Huxley's Courtship Habits of the Great Crested Grebe (Nature 513, 484; 2014) missed an opportunity to mention the starring role these birds had in Evelyn Waugh's 1938 satirical novel Scoop.

In this novel, Priscilla Boot — sister of nature writer William Boot — mischievously meddles with one of William's newspaper columns, swapping “badger” throughout for “great crested grebe”. The essay is duly printed — with the bird as its protagonist.

A prodigious correspondence ensues: one letter asks whether the author condones the practice of baiting these rare and beautiful birds with terriers; another challenges him to produce a single authenticated case of a great crested grebe attacking young rabbits.