{"id":19,"date":"2011-05-22T22:20:50","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T04:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/?p=19"},"modified":"2017-08-21T09:20:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T15:20:28","slug":"too-big-to-swallow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/?p=19","title":{"rendered":"Too Big to Swallow"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

On March 29 I spent the afternoon photographing birds from the boardwalks at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center<\/a> in Texas. As the light was waning, I noticed a Great Blue Heron standing beneath one of the boardwalks.<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great Blue Heron Standing Beneath a Boardwalk<\/p><\/div>\n

It didn’t seem to be fishing, but I suppose herons rarely ignore a nearby fish. This one certainly didn’t. Fifteen seconds later it plunged into the water…<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great Blue Heron Plunging After a Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

and came up with an astonishingly large fish!<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great Blue Heron with a Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m often amazed by some of the things that birds can swallow, but this fish seemed too big for even the most determined heron. Apparently the heron thought so too. The heron carried the fish away from the water…<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great Blue Heron Carrying a Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

and dropped it.<\/p>\n

When I left the Birding and Nature Center several minutes later, I walked across the boardwalk under which the heron had been standing. The fish lay dying on the mudflat below.<\/p>\n

Early the next morning I returned to the spot where the heron had dropped the fish. The fish was gone. I had expected to see fresh seagull tracks, and was surprised to find these tracks instead.<\/p>\n

\"Tracks<\/a>

Tracks in the Mud<\/p><\/div>\n

Later in the morning I noticed a fish head lying on the mud about twenty meters from the spot where the heron had dropped the fish.<\/p>\n

\n

Copyright © 2011 Robert N. Stocker. All rights are reserved. Please contact us<\/a> for additional information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  On March 29 I spent the afternoon photographing birds from the boardwalks at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center in Texas. As the light was waning, I noticed a Great Blue Heron standing beneath one of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stockerphotos.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}