White-faced Heron killing Another White-faced Heron

Yesterday bushwalking near Bobbin Head in Sydney’s north we came on an unusual sight: a White-faced Heron standing on another White-faced Heron in shallow water. The second heron was partly submerged and struggling to escape. The first Heron jabbed it repeated with its bill drawing blood and damaging the eye of the first bird and kept forcing it below the water. After being forced below the water several times over about 5 minutes the second heron apparently drowned. The first heron remained standing on or near its lifeless body for perhaps a minute then flew 50m across the estuary, called and started foraging in the shallows. If I’d realized what was happening immediately I might haved intervened, although the track was some distance from the water, but I’d have never seen anything like this behaviour from a heron. HANZAB mentions nothing like this. Reports of intraspecies-killing in birds are rare – although a Welsh swan made the news for it: h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_%28swan%29 Andrew