A fish too big

My smelly stream continues to deliver snipe (is the plural of snipe snipe or snipes?). Despite the milder weather (temperatures reached +11C briefly last night!) it seems that the Jack Snipe are very happy there and I have seen upto 3 birds on my daily visits. It is a great challenge walking the stream and trying to find the birds and it is often not until the second or third check that you actually spot the bird. Seeing them in action remains as difficult as ever though.

A visit to the Kingfisher resulted in seeing it catch a fish that was clearly too large for it to handle and it eventually dropped the fish. I was unsure as to whether this was deliberate but it did not fly down and pick it up from the snow it had fallen on to. Maybe Kingfishers do not pick up dead fish from land or maybe this is proof that it had just discarded the fish. Interesting to watch no matter what though.

Kingfisher (isfugl) with fish. The fish looks a bit strange but may have been damaged by the birds beak

it flew up into a tree and spent a long time manouvering the fish around in its beak

here the fish clearly looks to be on the large size

and here with the fish dropped onto the snow. It looks like it may be a perch (abbor) and the dorsal fin would provide problems for the Kingfisher

sometimes a Jack Snipe doesn't need to rely on its camouflage to disappear

spot the bird

the two pale lines on the back really look like blades of straw ad note here how they continue onto scapular feathers which stick out from the body thus breaking up the outline of the body

more difficult to find here