“I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing!”

I mentioned earlier in the week that I had some file photos of a great blue heron that caught a HUGE eel. Some regular viewers here indicated that they wanted to see those pics so I figured today was a good day to post them. These were taken back in October 2010.

The heron had grabbed an eel the size of a baseball bat out of the salt marsh during low tide. I watched it battle with the eel for close to an hour never knowing if it would really try to swallow this huge eel or end up leaving it. Many times I thought the bird had given up, it appeared to be exhausted, but he clearly wanted that eel very badly. The problem with swallowing something this large was the sheer weight of the eel. Since the birds don’t have any teeth, each time he tried to bring the eel up to get it position to swallow, the eel’s weight would cause it to slip and drop right back down into the mud.

What was amusing was the other bird spectators that would show up at various times to witness the event in apparent amazement. Assorted ibis, egrets and an extremely curious wood stork all stopped by to watch. Eventually the blue heron took the eel back into the marsh grass for privacy where I could barely see it, but to my astonishment he finally managed to swallow the eel down!

66 thoughts on ““I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing!””

  4. Wow. Those images are even better than I imagined. It is just hard to believe that the scene happened and you were there to catch it so wonderfully. Apparently other birds weren’t the only interested spectators. Thanks so much for posting!

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    • I remembered you asking about these pics so with it being a cold rainy day here today and I don’t plan to head out on alligator patrol, I thought it a good day to post them. I still can’t believe that whole thing happened. I had some other things I needed to do and I wanted to leave about five times but I couldn’t, I had to stay to see how it all turned out.
      Glad you liked the eel photos!

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        • Yeah I had to stay.
          Too bad he went back in the reeds to finish it off so I couldn’t get good photos of the actual coup de grace, but I did see it happen from my vantage point so I know for a fact how it turned out.
          After a few minutes he did come walking out with a weird look on his face and I don’t think it could fly for a while. 🙂

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  8. Great photos again, Phil. There was one across the lake last night who did battle with a much smaller fish, but he gave up in the end, and put it back in the water. Kudos to your Great Blue. Perseverance is the name of the game. Love the spectators. 🙂

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    • Yes I agree about the spectators! That expression on woody’s face is priceless, like he’s seeing it, but he still can’t believe it. Too funny. 😀
      Thanks for checking these out!

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  13. Wow… that’s disgusting. Fascinating, but still utterly disgusting. There’s just something about eels. Possibly because they remind one of snakes. So glad you included this, though.

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  17. WOW! What a big menu 🙂 I can’t believe too how he ate the whole thing. This is so exciting… I mean to watch this eating time. Great photographs. Thank you dear Phil, love, nia

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  20. Phil, you always manage to capture something exciting with these birds. You must have a tremendous patience to wait for them to make the move. These are excellent shots as always.

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  31. You know, I’m just wondering… maybe he headed for the reeds not only for privacy, but because he could use those reeds to help support the weight of the eel while he tried to get it down. It reminds me of those crazy restaurants that advertise “Eat this whole 64 ounce tbone and get it for free”. It wasn’t free for this fellow, though. He put in a lot of work. I wonder if eel is tastier than fish?

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    • That’s very possible he would use the reeds that way, the weight was the big issue for this bird in trying to get it down.
      Also what I did not show in the photos was how much the heron really beat up that eel. It would drop the eel in the mud then rear back it’s head and pound the eel with it’s bill. The sound was more then a little distressing.
      I’m not sure which is the tastier meal, but that heron really did want this eel badly.

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