Eyes > stomach

Natural History, Nov, 2007 by Erin Espelie

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Too much of a good thing can be overwhelming--raw fish, supersize meals, even water. An overabundance of the latter has beleaguered the Netherlands for a millennium. The Dutch have struggled to control fifty-four rivers with dikes, levees, pumps, windmills, and more, all the while waging a never-ending battle with the North Sea. In the past fifty years the country has spent more than $15 billion upgrading flood-control systems (which engineers in New Orleans are now studying).

Yet all that water is also one of the country's greatest resources--and among the many benefits, it attracts more than 350 species of birds. Photographer Jasper Doest spent two months near his home in Vlaardingen, in southwestern Holland, watching a mated pair of freshwater diving birds known as great crested grebes grow to a family of six.

Every morning and every evening Doest pulled on his waders before easing into a shallow canal to watch the grebes. He documented their courtship, nest building, egg laying, and, finally, their parenting of four zebra-striped chicks. Near the end of his stint, Doest caught the two-week-old chick pictured here mid-meal. The fish in its gullet, a bream served up by one of the parents, had been duly offered to the other chicks. But try as they might, none of them could swallow the wriggling fish--too much of a good thing for them to choke down. Finally one of the parents retrieved the catch and swallowed it in one gulp.

Photograph by Jasper Doest