A struggle between a Great Blue Heron and a Florida Banded Water Snake that lasts for minutes. Taken with iPhone through a Leica APO Televid 65 mm spotting scope with a NEW 1.8x extender which allows 90x magnification!
I get those Great Blues in my back yard after heavy rain events. They're such patient and stealthy hunters. The smaller Greenbacks nest in the big pine trees.
God programmed the great blue heron to know which end was the head on its prey. My favorite bird ever. At Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin there is a huge nesting area in the top of some pines that you can view from above by climbing the bluff. Awesome.
Wow, I thought the snake was going to "wriggle out" of that one, but not so fast, Mr. Snake! When the Heron figured out to pull it in from the back of his beak and not the front, it was all over.
Herons have a simple technique when it comes to overpowering their prey. They hold them just below the head and with a vicious shake sever the spinal cord. Usually, you can see the prey going completely limp and stop any form of resistance. That's when the Heron will actually swallow their kill
@@xyz2121 no more than the fish and insects and birds who die for the growing of grains and vegetables. You vegetarians and vegans just don't see the death so you think, I'm good.
If the prey is struggling at all, the bird does more shaking and shifting of its grip until it gets the animal by the neck. A few hard shakes, and it's neck is broken. Though they might be twitching a bit, they're not up to fighting and biting when they're swallowed. For example, that snake was no longer struggling. It was just noodle when it was swallowed. Does the bird make a mistake now and then? Of course it can. But the nerves inside of its beak tells it whether the prey is still struggling. That's why the bird will pause in the middle of mauling its prey, waiting to see if it's still struggling.
@@shemreznaumanafzal8032 You're welcome. Oh, and you don't see it in this video, but heron's beak is pointed. Sometimes it'll impale its prey on its beak, especially when it catches rodents. Sometimes it'll put its prey down in seeming mercy just to stab it.
I wonder those birds can be brought over in Africa? We have too many snakes out there to be taken care of. Would Heron survive in West Africa’s hot climate?
Oh interesting capture! Smart of the Heron to eat it headfirst, it must be a hungry bird! At the end, it appears the snake possibly going down! Still, it looks like the potential prey could possibly turn around (or even bite!) inside the elastic throat/stomach? I would think the heron couldn't keep such a thing down okay and the frantic snake must be scrambling to escape such a fate?
It's hard to tell if the snake was still alive or vital enough to defend itself. But I saw many videos of herons swallowing little mammals alive and even they had no chance to make any damage In the throat. Even though they were still moving like crazy
Patti, spotting scopes have the ability to reach focal lengths over 4,000 mm lens equivalents something NO standard lens in the business is capable of coming anywhere near (typically the largest lens one can purchase is 600 mm, some offer 800 mm equivalents). You should look into it more. This is known is digiscoping and the results one can get can be phenomenal.
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@@RU-zm7wj Pity, it's the closest analogy I could come up with. Nothing else describes it. "Shakes it until its spine breaks." If people knew there was an animal that took approach with its prey, they'd probably be much more careful about shaking their kids.
Doktor, this is not a camera but an iPhone and it's attached to a spotting scope not a lens so no image stabilization available. Also, at this magnification this would be the equivalent of >2,500 mm lens, not including any of the digital zoom on the phone so MUCH greater focal lengths than any standard telephoto lens equivalents. Here is a more professional example a high quality digiscoping kit in action: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RcbnGqntyaU.html
