A Fight for Life

      A Fight for Life

  Oct 8 2014  Antelope Island Causeway

          I arrived out on the causeway around 6:30 A.M. after dropping my sister off at the SLC airport. I was going to give another try at possibly trying to locate one of the jaegers. Arriving at the second bridge I parked and got out to a beautiful full moon reflecting off of the water and gulls feeding in the moonlight. Grabbing my camera gear I proceeded down off of the shoulder into the boulders and got set up waiting for the sun to make its appearance. I thought I would give a try at photographing the gulls in the moonlight so I had to set my ISO to 6400 and my shutter speed to 1/200 sec. and started photographing. At one point I noticed this lone Eared Grebe swimming up towards where the gulls were feeding but didn't think much of it, until I was witness to the little bird fighting for its life. It was first grabbed by a lone gull but pretty soon the odds were 4 to 1 in favor of the gulls. I took a lot more photos than these but this group gives a pretty good idea of what happened. I thought for sure this was the end for the grebe but much to my surprise and I imagine the surprise of the gulls the grebe was finally able to make its escape and lived to tell all about it.  Oh and I never did see the jaeger.