THE HERON AND THE HIPPO

The Heron and the Hippo ... it sounds like a title of a children's story. And like all good stories, it is an unlikely friendship but one that works out well for the intrepid Goliath Heron. The heron had been slowly circling the resting hippo, looking for fish that the hippo may unearth with its feet on the river bed. The hippo keeps a watchful eye on the heron's approach before suddenly moving to chastise the heron's incursion. Successfully the hippo had unwittingly scared the fish below and so it wasn't long before the heron successfully caught a small fish, walking away to the river bank with its prize wriggling in its beak. The heron put the fish on the ground and curiously watched it squirm for a few minutes before delivering a fatal stab with it's powerful beak. After a quick rinse in the water to remove the grit and sand, the heron threw the fish up into the air and opened wide to swallow it whole. To capture this image, I leant out of the game vehicle in the Sand River to get my camera as close as possible to the surface of the water. I wanted the dark background of the bushes and the still water reflections of both species before any sudden hippo movement in the water.

Sabi Sands, South Africa