The fish that did not get away !

[Venkatesh VT]

River tern.Hyderabad@India
We have a lake close by which is attracting many birds this season.One of them was this river tern which was hunting for a fish from some distance away from me.I was tracking it against a busy background (due to which it was difficult to focus)when it went into a dive & grabbed a fish( i could not track it at that time) & then dropped it into the water(i could track next few shots though not all).It did not give up & dived back into water & successfully grabbed it & flew out & seemed to have gobbled it in mid air

Drops the fish

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Dives after the fish .I could not get proper focus for the shot below

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Grabs the fish & flies out

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Happy flying with the fish

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Gobbled the fish

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[Ralph]

River tern.Hyderabad@India
We have a lake close by which is attracting many birds this season.One of them was this river tern which was hunting for a fish from some distance away from me.I was tracking it against a busy background (due to which it was difficult to focus)when it went into a dive & grabbed a fish( i could not track it at that time) & then dropped it into the water(i could track next few shots though not all).It did not give up & dived back into water & successfully grabbed it & flew out & seemed to have gobbled it in mid air

Drops the fish
View attachment 9785
Dives after the fish .I could not get proper focus for the shot below
View attachment 9786
Grabs the fish & flies out

View attachment 9787

Happy flying with the fish
View attachment 9788
Gobbled the fish

View attachment 9789

Nice Capture!!!

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Nice Capture!!!

Thx Ralph for your kind words

 

[Rassie]

Great captures, Venkatesh.
It could be that the bird was trying to reposition the fish in the air for swallowing, but it was too low to the ground. I captured this behaviour from a tern before. It caught a fish, flew up high, dropped the fish and then came in from underneath it to catch it just right for swallowing.

Here's the fish above the bird.

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Here's the bird coming back up.

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[Yezdi]

Lovely series Venkatesh & great observations Rassie...

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Lovely series Venkatesh & great observations Rassie...

Thx Yezdi for your kind words

 

[Robin]

Great captures, Venkatesh.
It could be that the bird was trying to reposition the fish in the air for swallowing, but it was too low to the ground. I captured this behaviour from a tern before. It caught a fish, flew up high, dropped the fish and then came in from underneath it to catch it just right for swallowing.

Here's the fish above the bird.

View attachment 9792

Here's the bird coming back up.
View attachment 9793

Great behaviour shots

 

[Robin]

River tern.Hyderabad@India
We have a lake close by which is attracting many birds this season.One of them was this river tern which was hunting for a fish from some distance away from me.I was tracking it against a busy background (due to which it was difficult to focus)when it went into a dive & grabbed a fish( i could not track it at that time) & then dropped it into the water(i could track next few shots though not all).It did not give up & dived back into water & successfully grabbed it & flew out & seemed to have gobbled it in mid air

Drops the fish
View attachment 9785
Dives after the fish .I could not get proper focus for the shot below
View attachment 9786
Grabs the fish & flies out

View attachment 9787

Happy flying with the fish
View attachment 9788
Gobbled the fish

View attachment 9789

Nicely done

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Nicely done

Thx Robin for your kind words

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Great behaviour shots

Thx Robin for your kind words

 

[Tadzio]

Beautiful series

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Beautiful series

Thx Tadzio for your kind words

 

[Icarus]

Nice series and back story.

 

[Venkatesh VT]

Nice series and back story.

Thx Icarus for your kind words