Venus Pool - Heron vs Carp!

I've seen Herons catch and eat all sorts of prey (Water Rail, Moorhen, Mole, large Eel and various fish) but today was as outrageous a catch as I've seen! I thought I'd post the whole sequence, it was quite gruesome to behold but the fish was very quickly moribund so didn't know much about it!!

Caution - the sequence contains serious 'threat' and violence...

This was the moment I became aware a (very one sideed) battle was brewing, one of the local Herons had speared a Common Carp and brought it ashore. After two more serious strikes to the head, I think the fish was a goner anyway!

Then clearly favouring a nicely cleaned fish, all the mud was washed off

With a rinse here and there...

The next stage was lining up the fish for it's terminal journey!

There's no going back now...

And it rapidly slipped out of view...

Gulp!

The whole process took exactly 1 minute which shows what efficient killing machines Herons are! And a couple of minutes later, it was back out stalking more unsuspecting quarry...