Great Crested Grebe Feeding

It has been a very long time since I posted something onto the blog, but here is a break in that pattern!   I have been to Iceland recently and plan to complete a book of images, some of which I hope will appear here in due course.

The wind was 'up' this morning at Clayhithe and The Cam was 'rough'.   I know Great Crested Grebes are pairing up at present and I was hoping to have seen a courtship dance.   Instead I saw a Grebe struggle to swallow what I think is a Rudd fish.   On occasion it had to drop the fish back into the water to re-orientate it for swallowing purposes.    All the time the Grebe was struggling, its mate was nearby with its beak wide open.   I couldn't hear over the wind whether the mate was calling.   Would welcome any explanation on this behaviour.

One of the images captures a Mallard flying past, but I wasn't expecting that and didn't have the focal length to get that sharp!

An exciting development when using a 100mm-400mm lens is to use it with a x 1.4 convertor and get automatic focusing!   Yes, automatic focusing with a convertor, but only the x 1.4 convertor, and not the x 2 convertor in my experience!   This 'wheeze' was shared with me on the Iceland trip and I used it today for the first time at home.   Brilliant.