Stealing a meal

I often see birds nick each other's catch, like kites, or gulls, but this was a new one on me.

I watched this pair of storks for around an hour, one of them fishing. It would find a fish in the water then take it to land, where it would drop it, and the poke it, and finally eat it. But the result of this - in the stork eat fish world - is that other birds would steal its meal! I watched as a small Egret pinched a tasty morsel, and then this happened. See the sequence.

OK, so far, so good, stork gets little fishy onto dry land.

Ahhhh, what's that that made him jump? see the small bird in the grass in front of him?

what is that....is it....a kingfisher.....a white breasted kingfisher?

WITH MY LUNCH!!!! squaaaaaaaaawrk, and wing flap......his size did not help him now. Quick and agile the kingfisher was going, going, gone.

oh, damn, there goes my fish!

That really ruffled his feathers...

One thing that is incredible is I could not have got that sequence even a few years ago...with cameras now up to 16-20 frames a second it meant I could get 4 images of a speeding, darting kingfisher. It was all over so fast.....for both the stork and myself. Great fun.