A Heron Day

Sept 2nd 2014. A great morning at the Pickup hide started very slow at first but the sunshine made it very enjoyable. Due to it's quietness, few people stayed very long and I had the hide to myself most of the time. By 11am more birds were showing and then 2 Herons flew in followed by an individual a little while later. One certainly was feisty and kept chasing the others when they became too close. The display from this was amazing to watch and having cleared a good size patch for itself the feisty one continued with some fishing. I watched it consume a few smaller fish then it just froze for a moment before plunging it's head into the water again. Previously it had been picking small fish around 10cm (4") long but this time it decided on a young, but very large Pike, commonly known as "Jack Pike". I would never have thought a heron would attempt a fish of this size but it carried it to the bank nearest to the hide (thank you God) and I managed a sequence of photographs of it's very quick consumption!. Really made my day to see this. Photo attached (I hope) and the sequence of the going, going, gone, are in the Photos tab if you want to look. Denis.