While carrying out running repairs on the locked gate bridge, Anne and I made a rather peculiar and somewhat macabre discovery. As the below photograph reveals a 3-spined stickleback was impaled upon the handrail by its largest dorsal spine... but how did it come to meet this curious demise?
Our minds collectively boggled until eventually we postulated that the only way we could envisage it becoming embedded was via kingfisher. Kingfishers stun or kill their prey by thwacking their heads on hard objects, (like, say, the handrail on the locked gate bridge) before swallowing them head first so that fins and spines fold back and do not impede progress down the gullet. We can only assume that in the process of thwacking the spine penetrated the wood of the handrail leaving the poor wee fish high and dry.
I'll bet he already reckoned it wasn't his day in the moments leading up to this bizarre crucifixition.
In summer the males, with their vivid scarlet bellies, build nests and woo passing females with an erratic, zigzagging ‘dance’. If he is successful the female will lay her eggs within the nest which the male then fervently guards and gently fans with his tail fin to oxygenate. In stark contrast to most fish species, (which will eat their offspring as soon as look at them) the male stickleback is a feisty fellow which prides himself on his near pathological paternal care which wills him to defend his nest and harry potential predators - often many 10’s of times his size.
Like some of its more celebrated cousins (such as salmon, silver eels and bull sharks to name but three) the humble stickleback has adapted to survive in freshwater, saltwater and the brackishness in between. Rather than scales on their flanks sticklebacks have bony plates numbering just 4 or 5 in freshwater fish and as many as 30 on their saline brethren.
Amazing! A stickleback waiting for you to unlock the gate, sounds a bit fishy to me!
Seize the day!