crow harassing a duck at Lalbagh tank

March 3, 2019

During my visits to Lalbagh, most of the pictures are shot near the pond because of the waterbirds. Its common to see ducks floating around; purple swamphens, herons and pond herons are usually found searching food along the edge of the pond; then you can see cormorants perched on trees, floating in water, diving and swimming underwater; lastly you can see kites diving and grabbing fish out of water. Sometimes you get to see water snakes and tortoises. Usually these creatures mind their own business. Finally, we have the crows which are hassling almost every other bird, especially the kites, purple swamphens and ducks.

Since I was carrying my camera, I could capture few moments of a crow harassing a duck in water. I must have seen the crow dive down, peck and claw at the duck couple of times before I pulled out my camera. Here are few selected pictures from a series of 40 odd shots.

The first one shows the crow approaching the pair of ducks, its targeting only one duck..

The crow managed to claw the duck's rear end.

The crow flies off for few seconds.

Returns for another attack. I'll let the pictures do the talking..

The duck stayed underwater long enough for the crow to give up.. for the day.

The duck surfaces and shakes off water from its wings. The posture makes it look like its celebrating the end of the raid.

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