A priviledged glimpse.

[MartiniDave]

On saturday my wife & I took my father-in-law to a nature reserve called Laxford Lakes, in Suffolk.
While sitting in the hide, with the old fella grumbling that there wasn''t much going on, a common heron came gliding in to land in the shallow pond, settling on the far side from us.
Almost at the same time I spotted a large-ish grass snake moving along the bottom of the shallow pond, quite near the hide, the snake quickly dissapeard from our view against the near bank.
Meanwhile the heron started to walk across the shallow pond toward the hide, suddenly it stopped, darted its bill into the water to snatch out a much smaller, extremely bright green, grass snake. It threw this back down into the pond, to snatch it up again, shook it vigorously, then gulped it down tail first!
Amazing. I feel so privileged to have witnessed this.
Even kept the father in law quite for a while!

Dave

 

[SimonM]

Bah, herons.....one has eaten all my ornamental fish this year!

But I agree, you witnessed a rare sight there!

Simon

 

[falling rain]

That's wonderful Dave.

Herons in my experience are very shy, and it's difficult to get close to them, before they fly off (big as they are ).
Sounds like one of those moments money can't buy..........nice one.
Sometimes we take the more common animals for granted, but as has been said by Tom Brown........"Nature is the greatest show on earth".
To see a heron in the wild is a great thing, but to see one so close and feeding like that is fantastic.

On saturday my wife & I took my father-in-law to a nature reserve called Laxford Lakes, in Suffolk.
While sitting in the hide, with the old fella grumbling that there wasn''t much going on, a common heron came gliding in to land in the shallow pond, settling on the far side from us.
Almost at the same time I spotted a large-ish grass snake moving along the bottom of the shallow pond, quite near the hide, the snake quickly dissapeard from our view against the near bank.
Meanwhile the heron started to walk across the shallow pond toward the hide, suddenly it stopped, darted its bill into the water to snatch out a much smaller, extremely bright green, grass snake. It threw this back down into the pond, to snatch it up again, shook it vigorously, then gulped it down tail first!
Amazing. I feel so privileged to have witnessed this.
Even kept the father in law quite for a while!

Dave