Going, Going, Gone

It was my intention to Blip on the theme of Darwin as it is Darwin Day today. I read that he used to eat many of the animals and birds that he studied, including the bittern. I also discovered that a poem in his memory written by his friend George Romanes mentions a bittern.

I painstakingly typed out one of the verses and went to Fishers Green, thinking positive about a bittern sighting and with the back-up plan of photographing the wooden bittern carving on the hide.

A heron was fishing as I entered the empty hide and I got a shot of its feet as it flapped away. I saw and photographed three water rails and while I was concentrating on them a little egret appeared. It had an enormous fish that it was trying unsuccessfully to swallow. It kept regurgitating and stabbing it. It must have taken it at least half an hour to put it away, making horrible-sounding croaks throughout. Notice how the egret's throat is distorted in my pic on the right.

I missed the egret taking off as the gorgeous parakeets arrived. I tried to get pics of them looking as though they were kissing for the 'love' Tog Squad theme.