Tag Archives: eat

Butterfly on the Lavender

While playing with the macro lens, I have spent plenty of time watching the insects in the back yard as they feed on the flowers.  The butterflies are quite fascinating as they have a proboscis that they curl up when they are not using and then extend to extract the nectar from the flowers.  As I was observing them at work, it occurred to me that the stills didn’t really give a good way of seeing what they are doing.  Instead, I switched to video and filmed them as they fed on our lavender bushes.  Here is some video of them busily getting fed!

https://youtu.be/OpzZAb30sZs

Gull’s Crab Lunch Under Threat

As we walked along the shore trail in Stanley Park, we came up on a gull that had just caught a crab.  The gull was intent on eating the crab, as well you might imagine.  However, its lunch had also caught the attention of a bunch of crows (could hardly call them a murder).  Consequently, the gull was trying to find a way to avoid the crows and eat its food.  It was not going to escape them, of course.  Instead, it had to do the best it could and accept that they were going to get a few scraps.

 

Heron Swallowing Its Lunch

Herons hunting for their food have been on here before.  I have often been trying to get good shots of them making the strike as they go after a fish in the shallows.  The effort to then eat that fish has also been covered here.  Therefore, I am going to be repetitive today.  I happened to be a lot closer than usual to a heron when it was fishing and I got some good close up shots of its head as it swallowed its meal.  Looks like the fish didn’t have much of a chance!

Stickleback Snacks

It is possible to spend a lot of time watching a heron hunting without seeing anything happen.  Their ability to stay still for extended periods of time awaiting prey is impressive.  You hope you will get some catch at some point and that it won’t happen behind something that stops you getting a shot.  One of the herons in Juanita Bay was having some good luck catching sticklebacks.  The only problem was that it would often get other debris at the same time.

After the strike, the bill would have a fish wriggling around in it and some leaves or twigs alongside.  The trick was how to release the surplus material to allow the fish to be eaten without giving the fish a chance to head for freedom.  Clearly this is a regular feature of a heron’s life and the technique has been practiced but I watched with anticipation as it got rid of what it didn’t need and allowed the fish to be swallowed.  The stills don’t give you much idea of how much wriggling was still going on as the fish went down the throat!

Wolf Feeding Time

Trying to see the wolves at a zoo is not always an easy task.  They tend to like to find a place to relax that is out of sight so, unless they are active, you might struggle to even see them.  We got lucky on our last visit to Woodland Park Zoo as we came past the wolf enclosure (the second time as it happened) just at the time they were being fed.

I’m not certain what they were being fed but it looked like rodents of some sort.  They would toss the food to the wolves and they would grab something and then head off somewhere away from the others to eat in peace.  That included one that came our way.  It was making quick work of its snack.  The sound of the food being bitten through was slightly unnerving but, thankfully, the pictures don’t convey that so you only have to look at the outline of whatever it was they were eating!

Cormorant Having Dinner

The shallow waters near the new ferry terminal at Mukilteo seemed to be a popular spot for the local cormorants to hunt.  For a while, there was one cormorant almost directly below me that seemed to be having a pretty successful time fishing.  A couple of times I saw it pop up and swallow something large so I spent a bit of time tracking it waiting for it to return again.  Sure enough, it popped to the surface holding a rather large looking fish.

I am not a fish expert so I don’t know what it was.  I just know it was still struggling to get away and, given the size, I was curious as to whether the bird would be able to eat it.  I clearly underestimated its capabilities as a couple of quick adjustments and the whole thing went down in one go.  I waited for it to dive again but, having had a few decent sized snacks, it was clearly letting its lunch go down.  It was a while before it dived again.  Just before it did, a bloom in the water led me to believe that it was making space for its next course.

Gorillas Have a Taste for Flowers

I knew that gorillas were vegetarians, happy to chomp on branches and leaves for hours at a time.  What I didn’t know is that they have what I guess might be considered a sweet tooth.  They were scattered throughout their enclosure but two of them were together in one section that had a glass viewing wall for the other apes to watch them.  The staff had recently put a load of food out for them and this included some bunches of flowers.

When I first saw the flowers, I was slightly perplexed.  It seemed like an odd thing to have put out.  However, the alpha male homed in on them.  Even then I assumed he would eat the leaves.  Not so.  He was happy to strip the flowers from the branches and chew them up.  The rate at which he went through them made it seem pretty clear that this was a preferred treat for him.  Having never tried eating flowers, I have no idea what they taste like.  They smell nice so does that translate into a nice flavor?  I’m not going to try eating some to find out but, judging by his approach, there must be something to them.