The First Annual Eel Festival!

Last night in the salt marsh the Eel Festival was a tremendous success! All the birds were plucking out these little eels and no fish at all which is how it should be at Eel Festival.

Actually we were rather surprised as this is not normal to have so many eels come through all at once. The birds became totally focused on catching and eating the eels, although several did have to struggle quite a bit to get these slippery creatures down, as you might imagine. Some of you may recognize the great egret as our old pal “Radar”. He has a tracking transmitter pack attached to him with two antennas sticking out.

Radar is part of a study on migratory habits although we are not sure how much useful information he provides since he never really travels very much. But he was out enjoying his evening at Eel Festival along with the rest of the crowd!

Great Blue Heron with eel

Green Heron with eel

Juvenile White Ibis with eel

“Radar” with eel

Tricolored Heron with eel

Wood Stork with eel

10 thoughts on “The First Annual Eel Festival!”

  1. Phil, great pictures, as usual. We saw a heron get a huge one a few months ago. It was so big he couldn’t eat it. So he just played with it./ Looked like a big (skinny) dog.

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    • Thanks for looking and for commenting George!
      I also saw a blue heron catch a very large eel. I watched him struggle with it for 50 mins. but he got it down.
      Although I have seen birds like that walk away from catches I know they really wanted, sometimes they just know when it’s not going to fit and they leave it.

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  2. They really were having a festival! Yummy looking! What a great variety of birds. And, as usual, you captured them beautifully!

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  4. Glad you had fun at the festival! Let me know when it comes back to town, haha. Great lighting on these birds, Phil, that is some skilled use in natural light! Seen any skimmers lately? I got a few shots of them over labor day weekend near Wilmington, there’s lot’s of them there. Maybe a good rainy day alternative if Huntington is slow. Masonboro island is where they are.

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