Eka's Portal

Great footage as usual. I love the second video.

In this nice long video with great quality camera and GOOD audio, A heron eats two good sized fish alive, one after the other - the first one is the best, with plenty of wriggling in the throat during the swallow and lots of chop-licking and feather-fluffing by the heron afterwards.

Nice. I love when videos have eating sounds. Here are some I found today. Skip to 1:11 on the last one.

Here's a fun clip showing an egret swallowing two anoles alive. They squiggle down his throat pretty quickly once he gets them past his beak.

Rarely encounter birds in rp, but these videos sure spark my interest in them.

Finally some INCREDIBLE new footage of heron predation from wildirishswan! The heron in question really knows how to handle ducklings, snapping them up and gulping them down alive right in front of their frantic parents. This same heron eats no less than five live, wriggling baby ducks in this clip, shot from multiple angles in HD.

Fresh upload from two hours ago~


Also this.

Purrloin wrote:Fresh upload from two hours ago~
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Seen the squirrel one before, it's a stolen video.

The gull one is new; shame it's flipped vertical video.

ETA: here's a new one with some narration.

A home video of a heron downing a very much alive mouse or vole, shot with a zoom lens and narrated in french.

Here's another awesome heron-vs-fish clip; I only wish it was higher quality! This heron has managed to catch a HUGE fish that is very reluctant to become food, and wriggles during the entire feeding. It makes a huge neck bulge when he finally swallows it, and helpfully flicks its tail all the way down.

YouTube videos won't display for me here :/

Yet ANOTHER new video from WildIrishSwan! It's Herons vs ducklings again, and the action starts quickly as a hungry young GBH snaps up a duckling and swallows it immediately, leaving it to frantically wriggle its way down very visibly in his neck. Then an older, more experienced heron is shown, who is content to take his time and let the hapless ducklings come to him - he snatches one and skillfully devours it alive, and then just seconds after the first meal has kicked its way down his throat and out of sight he spots another baby duck trying to sneak past behind him, and goes for the second course! Yum!

The final feeding in the video takes the rest of the time; it's a huge adolescent duck that seems too big to swallow but the persistent heron finally manages to get it down.

ETA: this excellent video is gone from youtube. I will keep an eye open for it in case it gets reposted.

ETA: here are two of the original three clips reposted.

Here's an interesting video from FYV - it's an anhinga, which is totally on-topic for this thread! This bird swims underwater to spear fish but has to surface in order to swallow them - fortunate for us who enjoy watching these birds feed. They are fast and skillful eaters, often tossing their live prey in the air and letting them fall into their wide open bills to be quickly gulped down. Two fish go down in this manner, in HD with slow-motion replays.



ETA: I appreciate that FYV included a shot of the bird defecating early in the clip. He didn't have to include it, but he did - a good nature channel shows all of the animal's behavior including bodily functions.

More herons-vs-ducklings clips from WildIrishSwan! I really like the swallow @ 3:20 - although the large duckling is not wriggling, the throat bulge is amazing and at just the right angle that we can really see it slowly moving down the birds gullet.

These videos are amazing, Fox! Thanks for finding and sharing them

Here's one for GBBG - a seagull eating a fish is annoyed by a squirrel, and is then shown devouring a squirrel for the second course! Not sure if it was the original squirrel or not - it looks smaller. The bird finally manages to get the furry meal down, after much dunking and positioning.

Indighost wrote:These videos are amazing, Fox! Thanks for finding and sharing them

You're welcome; I'm glad a few people are enjoying them.

Nice videos this go around. I especially like the Anhinga footage.

GBBG wrote:Nice videos this go around. I especially like the Anhinga footage.

Yes, both anhingas and cormorants are very impressive birds! Their necks seem to be extremely elastic; massive eels, fish three times the width of their head, frogs, etc all just kind of drop right down there no problem! They don't even struggle to swallow such huge prey either like herons or egrets sometimes do, it just glides right down smoothly and swiftly.

wow. the throat bulges on that first one are nuts. I'll bet that heron has got a pretty bad sore throat now.

Another Heron vs fish video with some struggling in the throat during the swallow. Not sure why the bird decided to take the fish so far from water to devour it.