I was walking over the Salmon Weir bridge in Galway (over the river corrib) this afternoon and paused to spot some of the salmon. In the corner of my eye I saw a commotion, a duckling was being given a hard time by a large gull and had obviously injured it. The mother duck came over to fend off the seagull and managed to see it off, danger over.......

But no.....a heron then came over, had a good peck at the duckling, again mum tried to come to the rescue but was seen off by the heron's bill. The heron then went back to the duckling only to be swooped on by the seagull. The heron went off and the seagull came back, picked up the duckling and flew off only to be followed by the heron.

Truly amazing !

I didn't know gulls (or herons) ate ducklings.

I did feel a twinge of guilt however, should I have helped the duckling out ? (I was 50yds away, in a suit and I would have had to scale down the steep bank)

I felt it was just to leave them to it, nature's way, survival of the fittest....

What would you have done ?

natures way mate leave it alone you did the right thing i would have stayed well clear as this is how other predators survive just as we do

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dont you just love nature

definately leave it good to watch

Very sad but itis natures way.

Most Ducks seem to have at least six offspring..if they all survived we'd be over run by Ducks

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Roy