“I never for a day gave up listening to the songs of our birds, or watching their peculiar habits.”
— John James Audubon
The Anhinga’s feeding system has steps most people don’t see. It stalks from below and spears the fish through the side. The bill is designed to keep the fish from slipping off. That’s a problem — the fish is stuck on the bill, and the bill can’t open wide enough to swallow it.
So it swims to a perch and waits. The fish has to stop moving first. When it does, the bird whips its head up, launches the fish into the air, and catches it head-first on the way down. Peculiar way to eat a fish.
I was on a photography trip with Cajunman Swamp Tours when I spotted this one in the water with a fish already on its bill. Camera up. I followed it from the water to the log and kept shooting. I didn’t stop to think about what I was watching — there wasn’t time for that.
It was the first time I’d seen this. The whole thing took maybe a minute. It felt longer.
I didn’t know I had the frame until I got home.
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