Visitors to St James's Park last week may have happened across this a rather strange wildlife tussle - a pelican picking up and swallowing a pigeon.
Cathal McNaughton, a photographer who captured the incident, described the event,
The pelican was on the towpath preening itself, and there were a lot of tourists watching it. Then the bird got up and strolled along until it reached one of the pigeons, which it just grabbed in its beak. There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times. Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head first down its throat. It was kicking and flapping the whole way down.
An RSPB spokesman said, "It is almost unheard of for a pelican to eat a bird. Their diet should be strictly fish."
But sometimes you just fancy a pigeon don't you?
It isn't known what the pigeon said to provoke the attack but we reckon it was probably something about the pelican's "big flappy beak".
