Little Blue Heron, swallowing
Egretta caerulea
Little Blue Heron · Staten Island · 5 July 2026
A Little Blue Heron with the frog turned and going down head-first, on the same Staten Island pond.
Herons have no crop to soften food first, so a meal this size is broken down entirely by stomach acid strong enough to dissolve bone - which is also how they deal with the fish spines and turtle shell fragments that turn up in pellet studies of the genus. The heron will not eat again today.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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