Laurentian Wetland
27 September 2014
While out and about doing a little birding this morning I witnessed this Great Blue Heron attempting to subdue a large fish, which was wriggling and fighting fiercely when I first observed the drama. The heron was quite far away and the quality of the pictures reflects that, but the sequence seemed interesting enough to memorialize.
Here are a couple of shots of the heron smacking the fish around and dunking it in and out of the water to overcome its resistance to being swalloed.
After several minutes the fish became inert and the bird proceeded to swallow it in one gulp, tossing its head back to ease the fish down its gullet.
Having finally eaten the fish it remained stationary for several minutes, presumably to aid in the process of digestion.
.jpg)
Hello David,
ReplyDeleteBeautiful pictures of the heron with fish.
They can big fish eaten.
I have on my front page of my website ( http://www.digi-irma.nl ) a heron with a very big fish are in the beak, he had worked in with two minutes, earlier he had been two such large fish eaten.
I wish you all a good Sunday.
A super sequence, David. It never ceases to amaze me how large a prey a heron can swallow. I have seen them get over-ambitious, however!
ReplyDeleteBest regards from sunny UK - - Richard
Great series on the GB heron.. They are great at fishing and amazing to watch.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I am hoping for an irruption year. I missed the Pine Siskins and the Red-Breasted Nuthatches in my yard last year..
Fish and a Heron, whose the winner? Great photos.
ReplyDeleteSo let's say, so this blue heron also takes really beyond satisfied with a little whahahahaha .... Great that you could capture this:-)
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteInteresting pictures, I would like to do but rarely meet this bird. In fact, I have not seen up close ...
Regards