Sarasota, Florida …. Pictures, March 1, 2018

Blue herons are good parents!

Such beautiful babies! Well at least the parents must think so! A heron chick looks a bit prehistoric to me. Even ugly!

Look at the picture below. Three chicks?! I’m surviving three grandchildren – but just barely. I don’t have to catch the food for the kids. I have to feed the grandchildren occasionally.

Yes, there are three chicks in the nest. If you examine the fuzzy feathered mass you’ll find three little eyes, three beaks. Three hungry mouths. Feeding three heron chicks must be a 24/7 job!

Herons generally swallow their catch whole as we saw in the last post. Their necks expand and down the throat it goes. Herons may swallow their catch to minimize the chance that eagles and other large birds can steal it as they return to their nests to feed their chicks. The chicks then are fed by regurgitation.

Three chicks require a lot of food! Both parents catch and feed the chicks – generally fish from nearby waters. But occasionally …

Blue herons must adapt.

Heron parents must teach their chicks the realities of their lives. Tasty fish are not always available – especially when three chicks, plus both parents, must be fed. Heron will eat shrimp, crabs, rodents, small ducklings, and even reptiles when the opportunity arises. Of course instinct will guide the heron in its selection of food. But chicks must learn that sometimes they have to eat other meals and a good parent might teach them so.

It’s what’s for lunch!

Something new kids! This time the parent doesn’t swallow lunch for regurgitation. Instead a new menu item is returned and placed in the nest.

Try it! You’ll like it!

So the chicks do try it.

They poke at it. Tentatively they pull on it. They chew on it.

The chicks – particularly one of the chicks – work on the snake. Finally, the parent (remember, there is no way to tell if this is the male or female) says, “Ok, you’ve got the idea.” It’s too big for you now but when you grow up, this might be your food.

The dead snake is wrested away from the chicks.

The parent picks it up, raises it’s head, and …

Swallows it whole. See the bulge in the throat ….

It’ll be dinner later!