Thursday 27 March 2014

Final Spring Far Ings Visit

On Wednesday we made our final visit to Far Ings this term.  The birds were very similar to previous visits.  The Snipe were fewer and harder to see.  We may have had a Jack Snipe in the afternoon.  In the morning we had good views of a nest-building Treecreeper, which Aileen went back to see during the lunch hour.  Both groups saw a male Marsh Harrier, and the afternoon session had a very lucky encounter with a Water Rail. 
Water Rail
 Teal
 Reed Bunting (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
Goldfinch (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
 Pied Wagtail
 Snipe
 Treecreeper - nest-building
 Treecreeper - on way to nest
 Ditto
 Treecreeper - nearly there
 Treecreeper - still working (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
 Treecreeper - nesting material (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
 Ditto
 Great Crested Grebe (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
 Great Crested Grebe (c) 2014 Aileen Urquhart
 Record shot of Marsh Harrier
 Ditto
 Magpie
 Ditto
 Ditto
Ditto
 Ditto
 Water Rail
 Water Rail
 Ditto
 Ditto

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Amazing captures and blog here! I initially noticed your "Grebe vs Fish" shots.

Wow, that looks like a huge fish (you know what kind?) staring down its captor's throat here! So could the bird really manage to win the battle and gulp that whole thing down entirely okay?? Does the fish (It even had some "seaweed armor" it seems) put up a good fight, if eaten, does the unlucky prey get swallowed wriggling all the way as well?!

-Kyle

Michael Flowers said...

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for your comments.

Unfortunately, I don't know the species of fish. I have seen other birds swallow fish that were still alive, so this one may have been.

I suspect what looked like seaweed armour may be the water weed the fist was hiding among when the grebe caught it.

Although it was struggling to swallow the fish, I believe it managed it in the end

Cheers
Michael

Kyle said...

Oh interesting! I have never witnessed an event like this before. I wonder, wouldn't a fish that size stand any slim chance of escaping or even damaging (those fins, biting, etc.) the bird's stomach/insides if eaten in that condition?! Hard to imagine if/does the hungry bird keep such a meal and the formidable-looking fish really lost.

You have some other nice shots too, keep it up! ;)