While at Pulau Burung I had the opportunity to observe and photograph the Yellow Bittern hunting for food.This particular bird would walk slowly along the reed’s edge and stopped immediately whenever it’s prey is located. It will remain motionless for sometime and wait for the prey, usually tadpole, small fish and crustaceans to come within striking distance before executing the ‘lightning’ quick strike.
Eyes fixed on prey, ready to strike…
Fire!….. notice how long the neck stretched out in order for it to reach the prey.
The unlucky tadpole is now part of the bird’s breakfast!
Another commonly seen bird at the pond is the Black-Winged Stilt. Appropriately named ‘stilt’, the extra long legs made them look rather unusual – the Giraffe of the Bird world….
The extra long legs surely served them well in their environment…
They may look a little awkward to us whenever they need to reach down to ground level…
Further up the pond I spotted this Little Egret foraging for food. It has a very interesting method to catch it’s prey. I observed that the bird will occasionally stop at any puddle found and used the foot to stir before picking out it’s prey that showed up.
Walk, stop at water puddle and stir with the foot..
Pick the prey that showed up in the disturbed puddle…
