Dinnertime!

I posted a single photo of this great blue heron eating a fish the other day, but a curious fan wanted to see more of the sequence. And I'm always one to try and please the fans. So here are a few more photos. The fish was actually caught by a little kid on the North Jetty in Venice, Florida. He decided it was too small to keep, but rather than throw it back in the water, he dropped it on a rock. This bird immediately pounced, grabbing the fish in his powerful beak, looking like chopsticks on a piece of uncut sushi.

The first challenge the bird faced since he didn't have to actually catch the fish was to get it down. He had to get it aimed in the right direction, but not drop it back into the water. That took all of about 2 seconds.

The fish wasn't going to give up without a fight, though. But these final convulsions didn't seem to make a hill-of-beans difference.

Not long now...

Almost done. Notice the pointy tongue that's sticking out towards the end of the beak.

There you go, all done. Well, almost. You can see that the fish hasn't quite made it down to the stomach yet, and I don't know how much longer it took to get there. The bird took off pretty quick after this picture. The total amount of time from the first picture above to the last one? 29 seconds! I can't even get the tarter sauce out of the little plastic cup that quickly.