Wednesday 8 March 2017

Little grebe predating on Newt

It was a dismal misty morning an Stithians southern cut-off today,  light levels were very low and it was certainly not the morning to take on the challenge of trying for good contrasting images of a dark Little Grebe fishing but I was tempted when one resurfaced reasonably close to the hide with a good sized Three Spin Stickleback in its beak,




There was nothing unusual about this but when it dived again a little later I watched for it to resurface and was surprised to see that this time it had caught quiet a large Newt,


When the bird turned during its struggle to control the Newt it looked like a possible Palmate Newt with mating colours and spots to its belly


It took the grebe far longer to dispatch the Newt by comparison to the fish it had eaten earlier but I have to assume it to fairly common at this location as the busy Little Grebe repeated this exercise again later,  This time it passed the Newt over to its mate that was fishing close bye,


It was nice to watch  the Grebes behaviour and its predation on a subject that was previously unknown to me,  I'll be back on a better day looking to improve on the pictures !

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