The sex life of grebes

Sigmund Freud and his daughter Anna, who fled Nazi-occupied Vienna in 1938, put Hampstead on the map as a psychoanalytic enclave and it's still heaving with therapists and clinics of every stripe. But long before  emotionally troubled individuals headed for the Hill,  a celebrated  biologist had turned his attention of the sex lives of,  not people, but birds.

Julian Huxley (brother of Aldous) lived in Hampstead only from 1943 to his death in 1975, but the plaque on his house in Pond Street commemorates his early, pioneering work on birds. His seminal study The Courtship Habits of the Great Crested Grebe was published in 1914 after he had spent  months observing and making detailed field notes on the behaviour of these wading birds - that came close to extinction when their velvety plumage was much in demand for ladies' muffs and collars. Huxley described for the first time the complicated dances and ritual displays in which  paired grebes indulge (you can see it here  to the mellow accompaniment of David Attenborough. Do watch it through because the best bit is at the end.)

Huxley's house is directly opposite the Royal Free Hospital where I accompanied the Old Man to be seen at the 'Hot Clinic' today.  After a journey that started at 6.30pm yesterday and ended at 9.30am this morning (with only 4 hours sleep at a hotel in Swansea), followed by a long day,  I am in no fit state to catch up with all your journals, let alone comment. Please accept my apologies.