Musselling In

12 January 2014

Waderscrape Hide, RSPB Old Moor, South Yorkshire, 1.15 p.m.

A herring gull in almost full adult plumage (a few faint grey dots here and there) takes a 2-3 inch mussel from a black-headed gull and takes it to the centre of the lagoon. It keeps dropping it in the water as it pecks at it, eventually taking it to shallow water by a little island, where it succeeds in separating the valves.

Grebe fishing

A great-crested grebe catches a four inch long fish and turns it around in its beak to swallow it head first. You can see the fish going down as a lump in the grebe’s throat.

The grebe seems to be higher up the pecking order than the coot, pecking in the coots direction as it comes towards the shore to fish.