Great Blue Heron Eats Snapping Turtle HQ HD 

Great birds, I love watching them. Glad they're not 30 ft tall!

Waitress, I'll have a bowl of turtle soup and make it snappy.

that's gonna hurt in the morning

They must have some strong stomach juices to dissolve that shell.

Here in the midwest, herons and snapping turtles eat the same creatures with the same ambush tactic, from different sides -above and below.

I'm amazed that this heron could digest a whole turtle shell? fascinating..

The water in the lake serves as dipping sauce.

This heron will be constipated for weeks.

Turtle: you will never eat me give it up. Heron: I always get what I want for dinner. And you will be my dinner!!

That's gotta hurt coming back out.

Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside

Now i will search "heron eats a rock"

That shell is going to crash through a windshield.

Ouch... This is for sure very painful for both animals...

These birds are amazing! I saw one in our backyard that had a cotton mouth snake in its beak about 3 foot long. He tossed it in the air opened his mouth and it slid right down the herons throat, then slithered back out! Ewww

If those birds were twice their size I'd be afraid to leave my house for fear one could be planing to make a snack out of me.

Incredible photography - thanks for your patience - so very interesting!

This is the bird equivalent of "playing with your food".

What a pinnacle of intelligence this heron!

RIP when that bird takes a dump.

That's a full 13 mins ordeal for both of them. Digesting the shell will be another story. Superb dude. 😆

Snapping turtle is either dead or so dizzy it can’t move.

Only needs a little bit of water to wash down that turtle in its intact shell? Amazing!

Chinese viewers (and pharmacists) are drooling over this video.

I feel like when the heron was taking a shit it was like, " OH ITS A BIG ONE"

From what I’ve seen so far with Herons is that one’s chances of escaping their clutches is pretty low.

An extended GIF.

Yum yum, Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside

"is he really gonna eat it?" Skip to the end "holy crap he did it" now I wonder, did he survive the S**t after?

I once caught some sort of freaky boney/spiny catfish in the Gulf with what appeared to be an exoskeleton full of spikes. Ugliest thing I ever saw aside from my ex. Tossed it on the pier, then a gray heron who I had already fed like 15 perch was somehow still intrigued. He walked around it, took a few looks at it, then stabbed it to death about 10 times, occasionally having to pry his beak out of the wood of the pier. Once it stopped moving, he took it right down, spines and all. Gulp.

They really are magnificent birds.

That is certainly not fast food.

I get the strong feeling this is not a normal food for herons.

That's gonna be a problem to shit out later.

The beak is made for stabbing, not crushing. The endless mouthing must be to gauge the width of an object that won’t compress. The bird has probably had choking experiences in the past. It drinks water before and after the swallow, perhaps for lubrication.

How can a turtle shell digest in a bird's stomach? amazing

“Totally Radicle, Dude! Let’s order some pizza.” - Leonardo

Heron: I remember mom told me to wash your food at least 100 times before you eat it. Turtle: Yeah you idiotic bird, keep throwing me in the water cause that's my habitat! Turtle: Oh crap! There goes my life!

That turtle probably once in its stomach started freaking out majorly and started biting or clawing trying to get out, the heron didnt damage its head so the turtle was still alive and biting, thats why it had such trouble trying to swallow it, it mustve kept biting its throat when it tried to swallow it

well his mother never told him to stop playing with his food !! :)- elegantly filmed !!

Wow! Herons really eats everything! Great video!

surely the heron cant digest that shell? which is going to cause it some big problems when it goes to take a dump the next morning

How does he digest it? It’s gonna hurt coming out.

what you do not see are his Heron friends egging him on, cheering him to swallow the turtle whole, shell and all

The turtle’s wtf moment.

Man this will bring consequences in the morning

Why is it playing with turtle when its already right time to eat?

Turtle: Can we get the $#^% over with already????

How did he get the turtles neck

Where the fuck are the Ninja turtles when u need em

Herons often try to eat prey what is to big to swallow it... But this time it has worked!

This guy washed that turtle more than me washing veggies before eating 😂

"There's always a bigger fish."

This is how I imagine myself being eaten by a T-rex.

I am stunned that the turtle won't bite the heron inside of its esophagus or gizzard to the point of fatal injury.

If you can't break it, don't eat it.

What a wonderful video

I think the Great Blue Heron must have one of the highest kill ratio of any predator!

That gives playing with your food new meaning. 😝

It’s like a garbage disposal

He may suffer a few "exit wounds" in a day or two...

Blue Heron plays with Turtle for 12 minutes.. swallows in the last 30 seconds. Kinda like bird porn.

"If it fits I shits"

Oh this brings back memories of that one time that I pooped out a turtle shell. Never again!

That snapping turtle got its neck snaped

Amazing video...thanks

That’s gonna hurt coming out the other end....

Christ, those birds eat anything. Hate it when they eat bunnies..

How long to digest?

Must have some kind of digestive system

Surely with a beak like the turtle has it would inflict mortal wounds from the inside

please tell me there is a part duce

Lovely Heron 🥰🥰🥰❤️🙂

and I thought my GF was slow eating her dinner.

Amazing footage!

Can you say: Constipation on steroids!

Needs a time stamp for when the deed was done.

Damn thing, just wont tenderize.

I was thinking swallowing it while still alive might be a suicide pact - but that heron made sure it was dead first.

That was definitely stuck in his throat

Soak it all you want. It ain't getting any softer.

It’s a double dipper…

I kept thinking about eating this bird during the vid... Uh, something is wrong with me.

In a terribly funny practical joke (for birds), the other herons told Herbert that the snapping turtle's heart was in his left arm.

Даа дружок, черепаха тебе не по зубам!!

Seems like it's trying to shake and wash off the shell or something. Then was like, damn it forget it.

Didn't think any amount of water was going to lubricate it enough. I'm thinking that's the last turtle this heron is going to eat.

Yeah, he finally got him, but maybe that's a meal he should have passed up. It looks like he's having a bit of a time getting it all the way down his throat. Those bastards will try to eat anything, I saw another video where one of these things was trying to eat a full grown capybara, lol! Wonder if they would actually try to eat a human? Correction, it was not a "Heron" that tried to eat the Capybara, it was actually a Pelican, but same concept! I'm sure the Heron would have given it the old college try also.

Does the heron regurgitates the shell afterwards?

These birds are something else, I don't think there's anything they won't eat. Fish, rabbits, turtles, other birds and pigeons, ducklings, snakes...pretty much anything living that it can get into it's gullet

What's stoping the turtle from taring apart the bird from the inside before he suffocate. Snapping turtles have sharp claws

Great camera quality.

I know what you all thinking . WHAT ABOUT THE SHELL??

these birds will eat ANYTHING they can swallow.

If you don't mind, what camera and lens/zoom setting were you using to take this? It's very good and excellent depth of field [focus] in this video. Or was it just 'cropped' from a wider image? Beautiful, either way. Thank you for this --- quite a learning experience.

Well THAT was impressive.................................................

Little bit of water to wash it down.

Incredible video quality!

If you took the heron out for seafood I bet it would not know to separate the shrimp from its shell. So embarrassing.

Can she digest the shell !?