Something fishy going on

Earlier this week, our resident Great Blue Heron seemed be suffering from a case of  “Your eyes are bigger than your belly;” a favourite saying of my gran’s. I spotted him on the other side of the lake, as he pondered what to do with his prize. “Now how in the name of all that’s fishy, am I going to get this monster down my gullet?”

I zoomed in to see exactly what his problem was, as he suddenly flew down to the water’s edge.

He’d decided that maybe if he gave it a quick wash, it might shrink a little.

But alas, the water just seemed  to make the fish swell up even more.

This time he’d certainly bitten off more than he could chew.

His catch was turning out to be a whale of a problem.

In the end he carried it across to my side of the pond, and hidden by the bank, I couldn’t see what he did with his catch of the day. A bit later, I spotted him again, and I’m sure he was thinking “Ah well, you win some, you lose some.”

The last time I saw him with a really big fish, an eagle swooped down and cheekily snaffled it, whilst he was debating with himself how to deal with his big dinner. 🙂

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Sunday Stills: My Backyardigan Birds

Ed’s Sunday Stllls Challenge this week, Is ‘Birds’, and I currently have such a lot of bird pics which I’ve taken at nature reserves close by, but I’ll save those for another post, and just show you the regulars in my back yard.

When we got back to Florida a month ago, Mr Great Blue Heron was the only bird around here, and had the place to himself. Here you see him surveying his territory.

It wasn’t long before his friend the Great Egret arrived back from his summer holidays up north, and started searching around the foliage for a few tasty tidbits.

He didn’t find anything worthwhile in our garden, so decided to try next door where there are more hiding places for frogs and lizards.

A not too frequent, but very welcome visitor, is this Wood Stork, who was just strutting over to start up a conversation with Mr Mottled Duck.

Suddenly out of nowhere, Mrs Duck arrived to tell hubby it was time to leave, and off they went, sailing across the water.

The other evening, a Common Gallinule was perched on the roof of our neighbours’ verandah. He was sitting so straight and still that he could have been mistaken for a weather vane.

Today, as I was typing this post, a merry band of Snowys arrived to try their luck in the neighbours shrubs. I had to sneak this pic through the window, as they are very timid. Maybe that’s why they tend to go around in groups…….. safety in numbers.

I’m not very good at photographing birds in flight, but I did manage to catch the Great Blue last night as it flew off across the water.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my back yard birds. To see more entries for Ed’s photo challenge, just click here.