Heron eats rabbit (inc. pics)

Galvasean

Saw this in the paper today. I've never observed this before.

Basically the heron grabbed the rabbit, drowned it, then swallowed it whole.

I decided not to post IMG tags in case anyone finds the pictures distressing.



http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00600/RSNN3023A-280_600558a.jpg
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00600/RSNN3023C-280_600559a.jpg
http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00600/RSNN3023B-280_600591a.jpg

Kaldorn

That is a great pic,I never know they took prey that big

stevensi

They are great pics. I've seen one take ducklings before but nothing that big. Although i did see a documentary recently that showed Great Black Backed Gulls taking young rabbits! Were those photos taken in ireland?

Galvasean

Holland apparently,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/29/eaheron129.xml

stevoman

a black wild rabbit. havnt seen too many of those around. i seen one about a year ago and before that the other time was about 15 years ago.

tba

its all those herons reducing their numbers

Vegeta

First pic looks a bit fake. Look at the halo type smudge effect around the rabbit

Also the rabbit is not hanging right for an animal being held by the ear

LaMer

I'm thinking thats fake.

tba

its in movement, ie alive

lightening

Before we go out shooting herons to save the rabbit population I found a higher res one. Unless the heron stabbed the rabbit in the head, looks like a bad photoshop job...



In this much more realistic situation you can see the beak is actually holding something.



Seriously though, there was some amount of them in Dublin last year, not as much now, but a lot more than when I was a kid. Lots of little egrets too.

It wasn't me!

I saw a heron on the lawn in Trinity last year. Wasn't something I was expecting that evening. I'd guess the picture is probably fake though.

whitser

picture looks a bit fake but i have seen herons taking rats. rat would take more killing then a rabbit.

Vegeta

lightening wrote: »

In this much more realistic situation you can see the beak is actually holding something.

Classic stuff

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I think it has been very clearly shown on several websites that it was a hoax!

meathstevie

This could well be a fake but it's fact herons don't live on fish and small reptiles alone. I've personally seen one making a meal out a few very young levrets years ago. Sure enough they weren't the size of that rabbit, not by a long shot.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

meathstevie wrote: »

This could well be a fake but it's fact herons don't live on fish and small reptiles alone. I've personally seen one making a meal out a few very young levrets years ago. Sure enough they weren't the size of that rabbit, not by a long shot.

I don't think anybody argued that Herons live only on fish & reptiles while we discussed the authenticity of these photos.