Greedy Great Crested Grebe.

[glsammy]

I was at Attenborough Nature Reserve today, I haven't been there much lately. Today wasn't too bad, in fact the weather was very good.
I managed to get a few shots of some of the Tree Sparrows from the hide:





On our way back for lunch we spotted this Grebe, having a heck of a struggle trying to swallow an enormous fish.
Not the best of shots, The bird was quite a distance from me.









I apologise for the quality again, I've placed these in the Archives as they're not good enough for the Gallery, but I hope you enjoy looking at them anyway!

Attenborough should become more interesting over the next few months as a large number of Herons have nested low down, right by some of the footpaths. Normally they nest across the River but they were chased out of their normal territory by Buzzards. Why they've chosen to nest so low is a surprise to me, normally they nest high in large trees. Some of the nests I spotted today were no more than six foot off the water.
I can hardly wait for the youngsters to be born, I should be able to get some good shots of the adults feeding them. There were Herons flying about all over the place. I managed to get close to this one, just managed to capture this shot as the bird took off.



This Heron was resting close to one of the footpaths:

[Oscar2006]

Another nice story with some more great images Graham.

[Gill Catton]

Graham can I just say that I think the grebe swallowing the fish should go in the Gallery - at least one of them because they are good behavioural shots and illustrate the size of fish these birds can handle - I wouldn't have picked them for much more than a fat minnow or fish fry - so this is a good educational shot!

[Dogghound]

Nice photo's. The fish is a Perch, have nasty spines bet it was quite an awquard meal.

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by Dogghound

Nice photo's. The fish is a Perch, have nasty spines bet it was quite an awquard meal.

It took the bird a good ten minutes to swallow it, with many false starts. Dropped it three times, but was very persistent and won in the end.

[glsammy]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

Graham can I just say that I think the grebe swallowing the fish should go in the Gallery - at least one of them because they are good behavioural shots and illustrate the size of fish these birds can handle - I wouldn't have picked them for much more than a fat minnow or fish fry - so this is a good educational shot!

OK Gill, I'll try and rescue the best one an see if I can improve it a bit more. I have a vague memory I did load a similar image way back, must have been almost two years ago! I can't expect anyone to look that far back though.

[galanthus]

I saw a crested grebe doing a similar thing a few years ago, we thought it was going to choke

Fantastic stuff, love the heron taking off, great detail.

[Ollie]

Excellent Graham and all worthy of a place in the Gallery in my opinion anyway. As Gill said great behavioural shots.

Excellent Heron shots as well Graham

Roger

[merlinspeed]

my opologies guys but with you talking of great crested grebes ,thier is a piece of music by dvorak i believe, with grebe sounds in the piece,ive been looking for it for ages but never found it,its a long shot but anyone ever heard of it

Fishing By Nature Forum

[aeshna5]

I'm probably sounding a tad repetitive Graham, but fantastic shots as ever. A real joy to see!