sapphicmedusa's Favorites

While my sister-in-law and I were observing and photographing the Sunfish spawning in the very shallow waters of the Lower Governors Pond, the resident Great Blue Heron walked right in front of us, no more than about 5 feet from us because it was so intently focused on the Sunfish as prey ! ! ! ! ! ! It caught and ate three Green Sunfish as we watched and photographed.

In the second-to-last photo, check out the pattern of the displaced pond water as the Great Blue Heron thrusted its head forward towards its submerged fish prey ! ! ! !

Two full term fawns expelled from mom after being hit by a car. Looked like someone moved mom off the road but the babies were still out there so I brought them off the highway to rest with their mother. I have a very tough stomach and routinely photograph roadkill for biology purposes but this was hard for me to see. Something desperately needs to be done about the issue with deer collisions in Auburn & Grass Valley.

Pecking into the wet sand and almost every time pulling out a mole crab. Most of them were immediately discarded, but if the crab was a roe-bearing female the raven would bite off the abdomen + eggs and gulp it. Video here: https://youtu.be/pI5mbiCj4Bs

The video shows a few females eaten this way, but doesn't show the raven's overall remarkable rate of crab-getting success. When I was first watching it it would stab into the sand every couple of seconds and get a crab each time, littering the sand around itself with discarded crabs.