"One young kingfisher once caught a stickleback in front of my hide and after a very superficial attempt to kill it preceded to try and swallow it. When the fish was half swallowed and still thrashing it became stuck. For 15 minutes the young bird tried to regurgitate the fish, shaking its head and wrenching at the fish, but it was stuck. By the time the bird managed to swallow the fish it had begun to shiver and sway on the perch. It had come very close to death and it was probably only the fact that the stickleback had suffocated whilst in its throat that saved it. I watched the same bird catch a stickleback the next day; it spent two or three minutes smashing the fish's head against the perch, killing it several times over, before swallowing it!" Charlie Hamilton James. Grantown-on-Spey: Colin Baxter Photography, 1987