Rutland Water a month ago in July.
Having watched a Great Crested Grebe swallowing a small Jack Pike at Tring Reservoirs a few days earlier (see earlier blog), I was surprised to see another and larger Pike being expertly swallowed by this grebe at Rutland Water. It's progress is shown in the series of photos below.
Lifting the fish up...
...to the vertical (giving a nice reflection)...
...so it will slide down...
...until it is nearly all gone, destroying buoyancy.
Just stumbled across your fascinating blogs again! Wow this is very impressive of the hungry (a female?) grebe! Still, this must be an adolescent (almost the same weight I bet.) and predatory pike!
ReplyDeleteSo this bird could really entirely consume that fish and deem it lunch? I have never witnessed an event like this before. Wasn't the fish thrashing (how long did the struggle last?) about the entire time here??
I hope the bird doesn't sink at the end too, haha! Still, at the last shot the pike must be desperate and still has it's tail exposed. The Grebe must be famished, I would still think the potential prey would be wanting to turn around in its elastic throat/stomach here too?!
You have some other cool posts, keep it up! ;)