You may not know this but when a female, human adult finds themselves in the presence of an octopus, their vocal chords loosen and extend, rendering them incapable of saying anything other than a warbled attempt at labelling the animal. It also causes adult males to freeze instead of lifting the phone to TAKE A DAMN VIDEO OF THE BLOODY OCTOPUS GRABBING MY CAMERA FFS MATTHEW!!!! 😂
Anyway. This also happened. We decided to head out during Matt's lunch to see what was going on in the wider world. We see White-Faced Heron's hunting all the time. They'll eat pretty much anything, and so we'll spot them hunting for lizards in grassland, catching flies and bees around flowers along with whatever they can find in rock pools, small fish, crabs and eels. They're amazing to watch, master hunters really so we always point them out to each other even if we're in the process of doing other things.
Still, we see them a lot so often don't spend a lot of time with them, instead looking for more unusual behaviours elsewhere. This particular bird caught my interest though, striking forward and then emerging out of the rock pool with something very, very big! Even though we were both quite aways from the bird we both started firing off some shots and when I realised that it was actually holding a huge crab, much bigger than it looked able to eat, I started to run.
Well, hop and stop and hop again, trying to avoid any slippery bits or hidden pools until I got as close as I could (or thought I could, I eventually scooted a little bit closer) without upsetting the heron and watched in amazement as it picked up the crab, shaking the crap out of it, pulling its legs free and throwing them back until only the carapace and all of its meaty goodness was left.
Okay, full disclosure. Watching this Heron break down this crab over five minutes was incredible to watch, especially as it swallowed the remaining piece which looked impossible, being much bigger than its head! But going back over the photos is pretty brutal (highlights from the entire sequence follows). The crab fought back as much as it could and when it only had legs remaining on one side of its body, it still was managed to wrap itself around the bird's bill in an effort to stay alive. And then once the legs were gone, it held on with its last remaining claw. Yikes. But a bird's gotta eat and some weeks you're the Heron and some weeks you're the crab!
If you love what I do, don't forget you can find my merchandise at BackyardZoology.redbubble.com 🙂
White-Faced Heron
Sandon Point
