Too big to swallow

Just another morning

It was one of my ordinary mornings at Het Vinne, at the end of June. The grebe chick was already quite big. As they so often do, the family was swimming right in front of the hide. I wasn’t alone that morning; someone else was in the hide with me.

Something in its beak

Then, all at once, one of the parents was holding something. I couldn’t tell what it was. It turned out to be a frog. Not a small one, either, but a big green frog. That was the surprise. I had always assumed grebes ate small fish, things like that. I had never imagined this.

Too big

And what do the parents do? They give it to the chick first. But it was obvious straight away: that chick was never going to get it down. It tried, and the parent took the frog back. Then it got another chance. And another. Three times the chick had that frog in its beak.

Plan B

In the end the parent simply took it over. And even for the parent it wasn’t easy. It struggled with that frog for a while, but finally it swallowed it whole. It all happened close to the hide, which is why I could film it so close up.