Breakfast Madness

Next time you feel like your kids are pestering you to death for something, some back and look at this post. From the Venice Rookery on Saturday, this is an adult great blue heron trying to feed two almost-grown babies. I guess they are still too young for solid food, so she's got to regurgitate some food for them. And they don't want to wait for that to happen.

Oh, the horror!

I almost can't look at this.

It's like the two of them are fighting over who gets to attack Mommy with their pointy bill.

And I guess the farther you jam mommy's beak down your throat, the less likely you are to spill any of her nutritious vomit.

Either Mommy can only take so much at a time, or she has to reprime the vomit pump once in a while.

But these babies just aren't going to wait for that to happen.

Mmmm, good. Regurgitated fish guts!

Mommy needs another breather.

But that's just not going to happen with these two hungry brats.

These shots are all in the order I took them, but I didn't include all of them. Usually it devolved into a mass of necks, beaks and wings where you can't hardly make out who's who or what's what. So these are just the cream of the crop where you can actually see what's happening.

And you thought your kids had bad table manners?

This is just getting bad...

I think Mommy has had just about all of this that she can take. Remember, she's been feeding these two for almost a month now, and it's probably been like this the whole time. I think both parents tend the nest, so my saying Mommy all the time may be misleading. Imagine a single parent having to raise two of these little brats. 50% of the time is more than enough!

Yep, Mommy has had her fill. With little warning, she turns around and heads for a nice safe tree far away from her not-yet-flying youngsters. She never even looks back.

I'm sure she's thinking about how pretty soon they'll be flying on their own. Then they'll follow her and want even more food. And maybe she's thinking about migrating to some nice adults-only island where there are no baby great blue herons.