It's raining cats and...fish?
Guest blog by Katy Haynes, Retail Team Leader and Reserve Volunteer
While out on the Grazing Marsh with our Reserve Manager Adam Salmon, I was admiring a cormorant flying low overhead. Suddenly there was a glimpse of silver below the cormorant and a wet thud on the ground about ten feet from me.
Slightly bewildered I went over to the spot to find not one, not two, but EIGHT fish. Each was about 20cm in length and in near perfect condition. Clearly humans aren't the only species who tend to overindulge, as this cormorant must have had eyes bigger than its stomach!
Adam was just as surprised as I was and suspected these were a species of sea fish. So we took one back to show our Ecologist Richard Bullock.
A very excited Richard identified the fish as a smelt, a close relative of salmon and trout. Interestingly, one of the key characteristics of smelt is that they smell strongly of cucumber, quite a pleasant smell for a fish!
Our friends at the Environment Agency confirmed the identification and told us that they regularly spawn in the Thames this time of year, which is where this hungry cormorant must have caught them. Smelt are a UK Biodiversity Action Plan species, which means they are actively protected in the UK. So their presence in the river nearby is very encouraging.
It's not every day that protected species rain out of the sky. Next time I'm on the reserve I might take an umbrella!
