The other evening I was up at Oare marshes photographing the lovely peaceful evening scene, late enough in the spring for ducks and swans to be swimming sedately with their new young ones.
The light was starting to go, so I packed up my tripod and was just heading back to the car when all of a sudden I was aware of a commotion off to my right. A grey heron (Ardea cinerea) had landed (see opening picture) and was making repeated stabbing movements into the long grass. It became clear that it had found some unfortunate prey.
I quickly took the lens hood off my camera and started to photograph. Everything was happening so quickly that I forgot to change the shutter speed: I lost several pictures to motion blur (agh!). Nevertheless, the scene was compelling.
The heron had caught some sort of rat (I've no idea of the species – brown or water?). Given that the heron was repeatedly jumping in the air, I think the rat was putting up some kind of fight, but it didn't last long.
Before I knew what was happening, another heron swooped in. There ensued a brief confrontation between the two herons, which the interloper won. After a moment's regretful looking at the victor with its spoils, the first heron flew off elsewhere on the marshes.
Although the rat seemed pretty inert by this point, it was clearly not dead enough for the victorious heron. The heron flew with the rat into some long grass where I lost sight of it. It soon returned, with the rat now in a very sodden, bedraggled state: evidently, it had held the rat under some water. The rat still seemed not to be fully drowned, so the heron flew into the East Flood, where it proceeded to drown the rat some more.
There came a point where the heron seemed to be satisfied: hoisting the rat in its beak and tipping its head back, the heron swallowed the rat whole.
There was an obvious bulge in the heron's throat as the rat went down. The heron seemed satiated by its meal, to the point it could scarcely walk, let alone fly off.
I left it at that point to enjoy digesting its meal. I've seen herons eat various things, mostly small fish and eels, but not a rat before. I've no idea how common this behaviour is.
FWIW, the pictures here were taken with a rented Nikon Z7II and my 500PF lens.
PS. I’ve now done a bit of Googling to find out more about heron’s diets. Both brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) and water voles - also known as water rats - (Arvicola amphibius) are known parts of the heron’s diet. One report from Scotland indicated that they each form about 6% of heron diets. I think the victim here is probably a water vole based on its hairy (not scaly) tail, chubby facei and rounded nose.