Gotcha!

A pied-billed grebe with a prized breakfast. The small fish struggled mightily to get away from the grebe, but in the end the bird won. Thanks for your views and comments!

Gotcha! (part 2)

This image was taken about seven seconds after the last photo I posted as the pied-billed grebe was swimming and the minnow kept wriggling. I didn't realize before that the bird's beak is curved allowing it to maintain its grip. Nature is so amazing!

Western Grebe

Pied-billed Grebe

This little Grebe after catching a minnow (see Pied Billed Grebe I) grabbed a crawfish and started swimming farther out into the river. What I didn't realize until after I reviewed all of the photos in the sequence was that it then proceeded to maneuver the crawfish around in its beak until it had the crawfish's claws isolated and then bit the claws off before swallowing the crawfish. This was obviously not the first time it had caught a crawfish!

Western Grebe