Christine's walking & birds blog

Yesterday the flood had increased in size again, and I counted a record (for me) of nineteen wigeon. 

This morning was much duller; in fact as I crossed the common it began to rain. A heron on the bank of the Roundmoor Ditch seemed to be having trouble getting a fish down.

It flew across to the waterlogged willows in the hedgerow, where it continued with its efforts watched by three or four hopeful crows. One poor picture shows the heron wiping its bill on a tree trunk; a second shows it with the fish once more in its mouth and a large bulge in the back of its head, suggesting that it almost succeeded in swallowing it.

However, when the heron finally flew away (20 minutes after I'd first spotted it) I walked over and found the fish still lying there, seemingly largely uneaten. I couldn't get really close without paddling. Presumably the hole behind the gills is the work of the heron's formidable bill so it might have got some meat out. 

I looked up the fish on the internet when I got home and identified it as a perch.  

Looking at the photos, Greger was amazed that there would be such a large fish in the Roundmoor Ditch but I've seen a couple in there bigger than this one. (That sounds a bit braggy, but I really have!) I didn't actually see the heron catch it but I assume that's where it came from.

Three green sandpipers flew across the Eton Wick flood calling and two of them continued over to land at the far end of the common flood. Two chiffchaffs and two grey wagtails were busy feeding on flies along the ditch, two Cetti's warblers called unseen, two little grebes were diving on the flood, and a kingfisher flashed by beyond the willows.