| TITLE:
| Mallard duck eating corpse of just-killed newly-fledged juvenile Sand Martin
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| INFO:
| "The following day from the previous image and again early into Goosander Hide with forecast of clear skies and calm conditions, mainly hoping to photograph the (fledgeling) Sand Martins being chased by Sparrowhawk or Hobby.
Mid-morning I saw one of the female Mallards that were on the water in front of the hide head in toward the shore and I noticed that there was a just-fledged juvenile Sand Martin on a low twig by the water which I thought she might disturb - instead she actually grabbed the juvenile! and dunked it in the water, killed it, and immediately began to eat it! Incredible and quite shocking really. It took her several minutes to swallow down the soggy corpse during which time she dunked and shook it, presumably to try to get rid of some of the feathers and/or to break the corpse up into bits. Quite macabre! and somehow seems rather unnatural...."
August 2011 (Goosander Hide)
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| TECH:
| Nikon D700, Nikkor 200-400mm f4 zoom lens at 400mm with 1.4x teleconverter, ISO 1600, f8, 1/2000 sec.
Hide shelf platform with ball head.
Cropped image about 70% of frame.
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