Phil Lanoue Photography

Earlier this weekend we were watching a large group of snowy egrets and great egrets fishing in the marsh pond.

Since there were so many birds fishing, there was also a lot of competition for available food. If one of them caught a fish it had to be eaten quickly because there was always another bird waiting nearby to steal it.

This snowy caught what was, for him, a good sized fish since they normally tend to get mostly small minnows.

Knowing he could very likely lose the fish to a larger great egret or even another snowy, it took off with the fish.

We expected to see it land nearby to eat, but in a surprising twist, it decided to gulp down the fish on the fly!

We figured it did not want to take any chances on loosing this prize catch.