Man shocked as eel 'falls from sky'

A Herefordshire man had a shock when a dead eel narrowly missed his head as it fell, apparently from the sky, while he was walking along the River Wye.

Stan Hedley, from Hereford, was at Victoria Bridge looking for a spot to read his book when he heard a "wet thud" from behind.

When the 29-year-old turned around he found a dead eel as long as his arm lay on the path. "I felt the stones kick up when it landed and it did give me a shock," he said.

Hedley suggested that the eel might have been up in a tree after being dropped there by a bird that had caught it from the river.

Recalling the incident, he said: "I was not even there a minute when I sat down and heard a commotion up in the trees above me.

"I assumed it must be birds flying off but then I heard this wet thud. I turned around and about half a metre away from me was this dead eel.

"I can't quite describe the sound but at the time I thought it was a bit of rubber."

Hedley described the aquatic creature's body as a "bit mangled".

"Who knows what journey it had been on? But yeah, it was in an icky state. I decided not to stick around it too long.

"It wasn't exactly a good mood to be reading around here now."

"My guess on the culprit is a cormorant and they're also a big enough bird to carry an eel that's about the length of my arm," Hedley continued.

"I didn't get close enough to measure it but it probably was the length of my arm."

He explained that he has researched mythology around eels.

"Eels can either be a bad omen or good luck. So I'll wait to see if anything unfolds. I would prefer four leaf clovers over dead fish being dropped on me," he added.

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