Here's something you don't see every morning—a great blue heron catching, killing, and eating a fairly long snake for breakfast. Well, maybe I ought to say I think the snake was dead before the heron gulped it down—but since there's generally a lot of wiggle remaining in a recently deceased snake, it's only a humanitarian presumption.
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| A few whacks on the rocks below the water willows… |
Anyway, that's exactly what I saw yesterday morning when I stepped outside with the dog. The big bird was on the weedy gravel bar across from the cottage. This long islet is currently dry and—if you're a heron—knee-deep in water willow.
As I watched the long-legged bird wade cautiously through the stalks, it suddenly paused, alert, then quickly bent and shot its long beak into the dense vegetation. A moment later it reared up with its writhing prize—what looks to me to be about an 18-inch northern water snake.
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| …a quick gulp, and gulp, and gulp again… |
Naturally, the snared snake was rather upset by this unexpected turn of events, and began lashing about for all it was worth. In turn, the heron would slam it down onto the bar's stoney deck. Eventually the blows took their toll. The wild lashing became mild wiggling…and without further fuss, the heron simply tossed it back and down—and with one big gulp the snake disappeared, though you could see a lumpy bulge in the back of the heron's throat for a few moments.
Yeah, that kinda grossed me a bit, too—and I'm fairly ungrossable. Or maybe it was simply because I'd not yet had my morning coffee.
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| …and it's time to go looking for a second helping. |
Frankly, I'm still not sure whether I feel most sorry for the poor serpent who got ate, or the poor bird who did the eating. I am glad the victim wasn't one of my queen snakes.
After that, ol' blue simply gave a settling shake of his feathers, and began stalking anew, looking for whatever else he might find to skewer and consume. Who says a canny heron needs water to hunt?
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25 comments:
We had a GBH who hunted our upland fields for several years looking (I assume) for mice and voles. It was the darndest thing...
eeewww!!!!
HI GRIZZ-
nature, and survival is at times, unsettling. Great picture and detailed share.
Love you
Gail
peace....
Scott…
I've watched herons go plodding off through the dim reparian woods of the islands across from the cottage, like gray-frocked old men looking for their lost car keys under the sycamores and hackberries and grape tangles. And they often wander about the weedy gravel bar or bring catches from the stream there to kill and eat. But this is the first time I've seen one get a snake. It does seem to me I've read or been told other accounts of field-feeding herons. Maybe dry-land hunting isn't all that unusual…but they sure do look out of place.
AfromTO…
Well said…if a bit girlishly for a camp-in-the-wilds landscape painter. :-)
Gail…
True. And particularly unsettling for that snake. ;D
I'm all for cleaning out the snakes :D Great photos. I haven't seen a snake in my gardens here in town in the 18 years I've been here. That is one of the few advantages to living in town I guess!
Debbie
Debbie…
I don't mind snakes. Here, on the river, I regularly see garter snakes, queen snakes, and northern water snakes, which are all water snakes. A black rat snake might also show up now and then. Nothing dangerous. We do have three species of poisonous snakes here in Ohio, though not around here.
3 years ago I had a snake as fat as my wrist swim between my legs as I stood by a rockcliff in the water-looked like a rattler-since then it is eeww to snakes.
AfromTO…
Not likely a rattler in Canada; probably a nicely marked water snake which saw you as an obstacle to be negotiated past rather than a threat. I can understand why you'd have been startled, though. Most women and about two-thirds the men I know would have become unglued. I could tell you stories…
Nature red in tooth and claw as they say, Grizz. I often watch wildlife programmes on TV where something like an otter or a bear champs up a salmon, still squirming. I prefer not to think about it really. Enough to make me a vegetarian.
Weaver…
Eat or get eaten…eat to live. We all eat, and in large part, vegetarianism just reduces this constant and necessary drama below the point of visibility—out of sight, out of mind.
I remain a committed carnivore—though I prefer my meat non-responsive and reasonably cooked. I will eat raw oysters and sushi, and I like my steaks rare. I've eaten rattlesnake, alligator, turtle, frog legs, and a few other herptiles, but wouldn't want one stuck in the back of my throat and wiggling.
The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake, Sistrurus catenatus, is the only venomous snake still found in Ontario-listed as threatened under Ontario's Endangered Species Act-Parry Sound the area I was camping in sees 2-9 bites a year.I picked up a shed snakeskin last year.
AfromTO…
After writing you, I actually wondered if you might have been anywhere close to Ontario's massasauga country when you related your incident. And the only reason I happen to know that Ontario has massasaugas, is because I'm perhaps a dozen miles as the crow flies from the western edge of Ohio's Eastern Massasauga country. Plus the Cedar Bog area, maybe three times that distance, is arguably the last real stronghold of the species anywhere. I've done a lot of writing about and photography of massasaugas in years past. Too, a number of the places I like to ramble boast massasaugas, so I see one every so often. They're quite the tempermental little rattler.
Incidentially, Ohio's other two poisionous snakes are the Eastern Timber Rattlesnake, and the Northern Copperhead…both found in the southeastern hill country. Timber rattlers are very uncommon, almsot extirpated from the state; copperheads are thriving.
I hope that wasn't a massasauga that gave you the pass-through—but if it was I'm glad you're okay…plus, you've earned the right to make any sort of eeowwooow snake remark from here on out.
Ungrossable.
This is now officially in my personal dictionary (though I will always give homage to you in my heart).
BTW.... I can tell from your responses (and my giggling at them) that you are feeling a world better. Thank God.
RobinX2…
That's what we writer-types do…when we can't think of a good word, we make 'em up. I say use it and claim it as your own. (Well, a little in-the-heart homage is maybe okay.)
I am absolutely feeling much, much better—better, in fact, than I've felt in several years. This has far exceeded my expectations already, and I've not yet managed to start field testing. BTW, I go in Tuesday for my post-op & installation checkup. I'll let you know how that goes, though I think everything is doing great.
Scribe--I was reading along, thinking--oh, I can handle this. Then suddenly my brain said--eewww.
Anyway...I watched a hawk make a kill once of a squirrel. I was teaching class, and the students suddenly became fixated with some scene outside--said hawk. The hawk had snagged a squirrel which was struggling mightily. As cool as you please, the hawk simply sat there, talons deep in the squirrel, until the hapless squirrel gave up the ghost and got lifted into the air by the hawk, flying off to have dinner elsewhere.
KGMom…
I suppose my attitude of practical reality stems from having grown up watching nature and animals, and never falling into the fantasy trap of "Disneyizing" the truth. Chickens chase, kill, and eat Junebugs, robins yank up worms, toads snap in lightening bugs, smallmouth bass eat minnows and crayfish, cats catch mice, crows steal eggs and hatchling from nests, as do black rat snakes. And as you work your way up the food chain, while the scenario remains the same, predator and prey get larger and the scene often bloodier. That's just how it is, the way of life…and sooner or later, you must accept the fact.
I know you understand this intellectually. So I should also say that I do understand the other side of the equation. Sometimes I can't help but bring my emotions to the situation I'm watching—sympathy, anger, even a degree of queasiness on occasion. It isn't always easy to watch things play out.
And I know you'll think this is crazy, but there are times, in a grocery store, when I pick up a shrink-wrapped steak or a roasting chicken in a bag, that I stop and forcibly remind myself that this was once a living, breathing creature; not manufactured food product…living flesh. I do that for perspective's sake, to keep my self-opinion honest.
I'm aware not everyone wants to see photos of a heron eating a snake—and they probably really don't want to be told the snake was still wiggling at the time. But that's simply the way it was, truth. And I thought some might be interested in seeing the shots. They weren't posted to offend, but to inform.
Incidentally, re. your hawk incident…that's pretty much standard operating procedure. During the winter especially, I see a lot of kills by Cooper's hawks and the occasional redtail, of various birds, now and then a squirrel. Most take place within 25 feet of where I sit at my desk. The hawk, having gotten hold of whatever prey, sits on it—on the ground or on a big limb—and often "covers" it with outspread wings, waiting for the animal to die. All the while the hawk looks around for anything that might disturbe its meal or pose a danger, and it also keeps glancing down at whatever is struggling in its talons, seeing how things are going. When the prey is dead, the hawk may fly off to a quieter place to enjoy its meal, or if it feels comfortable where it's at, simply begin eating. It doesn't take a hawk long to pluck or tear apart and consume bird or mammal…and there's not much evidence left behind other than a bit or fur or feathers and maybe a drop or two of blood.
Anyway, I hope you—and other readers—weren't too put off by the pics. I appreciate the comment.
everything can't always be pretty, life isn't just butterflies and rainbows-you gave a great reality check.
AfromTO…
I probably didn't give sufficient thought before posting the pix. I was just tickled to have captured the scene and eager to share…and forgot that what I found neat others might find nauseating.
I feel rather sorry for the snake - quietly minding its own busines and then suddenly - Wham! he's someone's breakfast. Actually this really surprised me as I didn't know that herons would take snakes.
Rowan…
Well, the snake got the bad end of the deal, for sure—and it wasn't pretty to watch. I guess I wasn't so surprised about the heron catching and eating a snake—they are really omnivores, in a mostly fishy sort of way—but the size of the snake it caught, which was really larger than I would have imagined.
Amazing capture and blog here! So the heron was really able to gulp down that huge snake entirely really?? I wonder, wouldn't the desperate prey stand any slim chance of escaping or even damaging (biting etc.) the bird's throat/stomach if eaten in that condition!? Hard to imagine the snake would give in so easily as just another meal once inside!
-Kyle
Kyle…
Thank you for your nice comments. I'm glad you found your way to Riverdaze and pleased you like the posts and images. Welcome! Please drop by and comment anytime!
You ask some interesting questions. I've wondered the same things: How big a snake can blue heron manage to swallow? Isn't it a more aggressive (thus danger to the heron) prey to catch and begin to eat? And once eaten, is there a chance the snake could still do interior damage—or even escape?
The size/swallowing part is probably mostly limited by diameter and maybe weight than length. The bird his to lift and toss to get the head-end portion started, and a snake's weight is distributed along a long length. It's also flexible, so getting the end started is not that easy, sort of like trying to balance a rope. But once he gets it up, in, and going, that part is probably taken care of.
Nothing likes getting whacked and stabbed by a heron's sharp beak, and whatever it is is going to do its level best to fight back and escape. The snake in the photo surely tried. I suppose it very much depends on that initial surprise blow—how much it stuns or damages the prey. I've caught three or four herons over the years that I found tangled in fishing line along the streams I frequent. They are big and intimidating—at least they intimidated me—and I was mighty careful to get their head and that deadly beak under control ASAP! No question it could do a man damage. So I'd say given a well-aimed first shot, a hunting heron has half the battle won from the get-go—the prey hurt, addled, easier to keep whacking and banging until death. I'd also say it's a reasonable guess to think that occasionally things go wrong—the first surprise whack misses just a tad, isn't as damaging as hoped, or the intended victim is tougher, meaner, or somehow lucky. I will say though that I've watched herons here along the river catch and eat hundreds of fish, and don't know that I've ever seen one get away—and they're wiggling, and flopping, and fighting back as best they can. Herons are seriously efficient, deadly at their game.
Once inside…well, if it wasn't dead or dying already, there's probably nasty digestive fluids doing their thing. I have watched what was obviously the visible under-the-feathers bulges of a just-swallowed fish as it flopped around inside a heron for several minutes afterwards, so it isn't an instant death deal. I guess the answer would be how "undead" the snake was, and possibly the type of snake. It would do its best to live for as long as possible, whatever that entailed. There would be almost no hope of escape. But no creature is going to give up until it can't fight any more, or is claimed by death. That's the way of the wild, of all life, and perhaps seems harsh but simply reflects reality.
Hope this sort of answers your questions…
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