Life and Death Drama in the Backyard Pond

On Wednesday afternoon I was looking into the backyard checking out my bird feeders for birds when I heard and a saw a commotion going on in our small backyard pond. There was splashing sounds and a flash of orange in the water. I grabbed my camera and ran to the backyard. Two Garter Snakes had a hold of one good sized goldfish and they were thrashing around trying to pull it away from one another. Finally the bigger snake broke free with it and the smaller one swam off. The larger snake climbed up onto the rocks that ring the shore and attempted to swallow the fish. Which was pretty good sized for a Goldfish as it was almost four inches long. First it tried from the side and there was no way that was ever going to happen. Next it attempted to swallow it tail first. Luckily it gave up on that idea almost immediately. On it's final attempt it came from the head and it was doing pretty well when the blasted cat showed up. The snake spit out the fish and slid off into the forest. Yesterday afternoon I set up my photoblind next to the pond and I lay down on a piece of carpet. I got quite a few images of the Garter snakes hunting. They would chase the fish all over the pond until they got too cold and then they would crawl up onto the rocks to sun themselves and warm up. A couple of the snakes would try and ambush the goldfish from above. I didn't observe any goldfish being caught. God's love and blessings upon your day, chris All images were creted with a Canon 7D MkII and a Canon 100-400 IS v.1 lens or a Tamron 150-600mm lens. A 38mm extension tube was placed between the camera body and the lens to allow close focusing. #TeamCanon