It was interesting wandering along the Cooks River looking at the birdlife. I first noticed a white faced heron that had caught a small fish and then quickly ate it.
Cormorant with fish
I then went to the Cup and Saucer Creek wetland to see how the baby moorhens were going. They were fine, but their mothers alway seem to keep the chicks a long way from good vantage points and make them hard to photograph.
As I headed home, I noticed a cormorant that was struggling with a fish it had just caught. It was a large fish and the bird seemed to be having a lot of trouble it. I had plenty of time to park my bike, get out my camera and take a series of photos of this epic endeavour. Having no teeth it is hard for a bird to eat a large fish bite by bite. It has to swallow the fish. And in this case, the cormorant found it very hard to do. At one point the bird had to dive underwater with the fish. Perhaps to try and manoeuvre it to a better position in its beak?
Anyway, it eventually succeeded. It did seem to look very uncomfortable as it slowly swam away.
The heron with its modest meal
Anazing captures of that cormorant and huge fish! That looks like quite a spiky/formidable fish staring down its captor’s throat here! So could the bird really manage to win the struggle and gulp that whole thing down entirely okay?? Does the fish put up a good fight, if eaten, does the unlucky fish get swallowed wriggling all the way as well?!
The cormorant did manage to swallow the fish – but only after few minutes. This gave me time to get my camera out and take a few photos. The cormorant did look very uncomfortable when the fish was finally down.