Whimbrel with catch

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Whimbrel feeding on a hermit crab.

Hermit crabs have a soft body unlike normal crabs and protect themselves by occupying a empty sea shell and carrying it around. This whimbrel put its long beak to good use and literally shook the crab out of the shell. Will post the series in the natural history section.
500D, 55-250, 250mm, AE, f7.1, ISO 200, SS 1/400. Calicut outskirts. C&C welcome

Rgds
Roopak

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice to see it with a catch. Quite interesting to know that is actually shakes of the shell to eat the crab. Good eye contact. The composition looks fine. Was a lower angle possible? Thanks for sharing.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

thanks mrudul. getting lower was difficult as the beach was at a gradient and I was on all four....moving any closer wud disturb the bird.

rgds
Roopak

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice action. It is good the bird is parallel to the camera. At times it is not easy to go down because the slope of the beach is steep either due to the sea or due to dredging by nearby port authorities or due to a combination of both. I have been brought up close to sea (Gopalpur beach in the Bay of Bengal) and once when I went to the sea I was surprised to see that suddenly the beach has been kind of cutoff due to the dredging.

The hermit crab would have wished that the whimbrel catch some other snail or mollusc so that it can get a better fitting shell.