Fish - It’s What’s for Dinner
Did you read that title in your Sam Elliott voice? Don’t know what I’m talking about? Google him and “beef” and then it will make sense.
Pescatarian birds are having a field day lately as they comb our rivers and lakes and ponds for what seems like a bountiful fish year. It’s fun to watch their differing styles but all seem to have being largely successful as a common result. In this post we’ll look at birds that use their beaks instead of talons (such as eagles and ospreys) to catch fish.
Cormorants
Let’s start with a bird that is commonly mistaken for loons, the cormorant, specifically our local species, the Double-crested Cormorant. These birds mostly disappear here in November and then reappear in large numbers in April, staying throughout the summer. They can be found in almost any source of water, diving in shallow water to locate their prey, then swimming often at fast speeds to snatch them. Until recently I had only seen them catch smaller fish underwater where they eat them right away, meaning I have basically no good photos of them catching and eating fish. That all drastically changed this month when I started noticing them scooping good-sized brown trout out of the South Platte River as if they were doing the proverbial “shooting fish in a barrel”. (As always, all photos are best enjoyed at (almost) full screen by clicking on the photo)
Above - Cormorant balances trout in its beak
When you look at the photos below, note how the upper bill of the cormorant is hooked. This allows them to “stab” the fish in its side at first and then to “lock” it in while the fish thrashes around desperately trying to escape, though rarely successful.
Above - Cormorant catches a meal on the run (not pictured - another cormorant chasing it!)
Above - Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s fish but this cormorant does anyways
Above - After it eats, the Cormorant sits and dries its wings off. I assume it has already loosened its belt.
Great Blue Herons
This fishing hotspot on the river didn’t go unnoticed by our Great Blue Herons either. On most days, three of them were almost always nearby. They would watch for the cormorants to stir up fish in the hope that some meals would be sent their way. It often did and it’s common to watch herons or egrets and cormorants work together synergistically that way.
Above - Cormorants and Great Blue Herons often work together to catch fish as this heron flew over to join the cormorant as its “wing man”
Above - Great Blue Heron wades into the river to start its intense search
Great Blue Herons fish very differently from the swimming cormorants. They will stand completely motionless for what seems like hours (usually 20-30 minutes at a time) with a seemingly vacuous stare at the water.
Then comes the head movements, sometimes up, sometimes down and even sometimes sideways (see below). They have spotted a potential meal and are making quick “calculations” about the refraction factor of their prey’s location so that they can pinpoint exactly where the fish will be when they dive in. Once they see the fish and make the calculation, they dive their head in and sometimes part of its body depending on how badly it wants that fish!
Then it typically uses its upper bill to spear the fish, rendering the fish helpless in the fight to stay out of the bird’s stomach. I have also seen herons simply grab a fish instead of spearing it but that does give the fish a much better chance of slipping away as herons don’t have a hook at the end of their beaks like cormorants.
Above - “Hey, that’s my fishing spot” argues one Great Blue Heron to the other one
Snowy Egrets
Snowy Egrets used to frequent this fishing hole in years past but this year they seem to be in smaller lakes. In the photo below, I found a Snowy Egret pluck a crustacean of some sort (likely a crawfish) out of a pond and quickly down it. (Herons, egrets and cormorants all swallow the fish whole whereas birds with talons like eagles and osprey pick at the fish, taking their time to savor their meal.)
Above - Snowy Egret plucks a crustacean out of a pond
Then, just last week, I witnessed an odd occurrence that I couldn’t figure out until I got home and viewed my photos on a large monitor. In the first photo below the egret is flying across a small lake carrying something, a highly unusual behavior for them. It landed on a shore and picked at the unidentified object for about 15 minutes until (I believe) it gave up. That was a good thing because it wound up being a fish, but it was trapped inside of a plastic bag. I sort of doubt the fish was placed in the bag and left there – more likely the fish got inadvertently caught in the bag and was trapped. Either way it is likely human carelessness was involved that could have harmed a fish and might have the bird also had it swallowed the plastic bag. (Look closely at the bag in the photo one ht right and you can faintly see a fish in there.)
Black-crowned Night Heron
Let’s finish with a more light-hearted photo. One day a Black-crowned Night Heron was fishing in the same location as the other birds when it made the same head movement of its cousin, the Great Blue Heron. I pointed my camera but it never did stick its bill in the water. Still, I detected a lot of motion and commotion, so I pushed the shutter. I was a bit too late to catch the heron picking up the very large bull snake, but I did get the heron leaving the snake on the rocks while the heron skedaddled out of there! Bull snakes don’t have poisonous venom but they do bite so it might have bitten the heron, making him realize this was not an ideal meal, even though herons are known to eat snakes.
Above - Can you see the bull snake in the lower left corner? It blends in with the rocks and it frightened the Night Heron to run away!
So, the next time you hear Sam Elliott talk about beef for dinner, just think of changing that to fish. Or maybe use your Homer Simpson voice and change donuts to “Mmm, fish”.