Taking a Tern

I went to the estuary today to try out the new pneumatic wheels on my walker on the rather rough paths there. What a joy it was - the walker glided smoothly over all the shingle and corrugations and it is much quieter. The old plastic wheels with clatter and vibrations took a lot of the joy out of walking and it was hard to sneak up on birds.

I sat on the seat for a while, enjoying the newly emerged sun and watching the terns diving. When they came a little closer I lifted the camera. There seemed to be a pair, with one diving and the other sitting by the reeds but they were still not close enough to see much detail  With the camera, I followed the diver  into the water and then the subsequent flight back to what I thought was the mate.

Much to my delight when I put them up on the computer, I found the diver had caught a decent fish and then took it to feed what turned out to be a chick, not a partner.

In the extras are the rest of the sequence
1. Arriving with the fish
2. Feeding baby
3. Baby shaking the life out of the fish ( And photobombing pied stilt)
4. Halfway down the hatch


The terns look like they are wearing lipstick:-))