Thursday 9 August 2012

Wilstone Reservoir - Great Crested Grebe and Pike

An evening's walk at Wilstone Reservoir Tring in July.

A still evening with a Great Crested Grebe swimming quite close to the bank....

....Moving away it dived and came up with what looked like a beak full of weeds....

....At first I could not work out what the bird had hold of, but after a minute or so of juggling, a young pike emerged as the weeds fell away.  The grebe soon swallowed this fish.

Later, the grebe surfaced just below me on the bank, allowing me to take a relatively close shot as it swam off.


2 comments:

  1. Excellent series! Wow that looks like a pretty big pike (don't they have big sharp teeth?) captured here! So the young bird really managed to gulp it entirely okay?? Does the fish put up a good struggle, if eaten, does it get swallowed Down wriggling all the way as well?!

    -Kyle

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  2. Hi Kyle, Thanks for your comment. Some time ago now, so exact details are a little lost in time. Yes Pike are a predator and do have sharp teeth, but this was a relatively small one. The bird is actually an adult, and yes it did manage to swallow the fish head first down in one go, and I imagine that it did wrggle a bit. A better series of photos were posted 10 days later (19th August 2012) of another Gt Crested Grebe taking a pike at Rutland Water. Take a look. Regards Mick

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