Lyle the Little Blue Heron is an amazingly accomplished angler…
But sometimes his eyes are bigger than his stomach.
Little Blue Heron love to feast on fish, frogs, insects, small rodents and they can even handle smaller crustaceans. They can’t crack open or fillet their prey, so they swallow them whole and rely on stomach acid to break down bones and chitin.
Interestingly, I’ve also read that herons have neither crops nor gizzards—the storage and grinding apparatus that most birds use to “chew” their food before it reaches their intestines. So they often simply vomit stuff their stomach acid couldn’t handle.
Today Lyle seemed to be showing me what an adept fisher he’s become, so brought up this shockingly large (for him!) crab…
And promptly dropped it back in the drink. Human fishermen may throw back the little ones, but Lyle throws back the big ones!
