The Disgusting (yet Interesting) Find!

  This is going to seem like a rather disgusting post but for the life of me, I cannot find anything much about the topic I wish to discuss.  Bird puke. Yep, bird puke.  Most of us that use a woods, field or bayou as our playground are accustomed to finding bird poop or other forms of scat on our daily hikes.  It becomes to be a watch sign for whatever critter was there before us.  A lot of the critters use their scat as territory markers or even as warnings to other critters. "I was here first. LEAVE!"  Then there are ones that just poop wherever and whenever the urge strikes..namely birds.  With an exception of a few (think Green Heron here) that will literally drop poop on you as a method of defense, most will just drop and leave it. Not many of the critters puke on demand though.  Most critters that go around vomiting are ill but not all.  For some this is a very handy habit.  Which brings me to the bird puke in question!

  Now for all you ever wanted (and probably a whole lot more) to know about Yellow Crowned Night Heron puke!  Ms. Ez and I headed to the pier for our late evening hike.  The sun was already starting to slide down behind the pines when we set out so this had to be a quick dash.  Once on the pier, the old dog sniffed a pile of gunk on the boards.  (Remember, dogs are so prone to sniff icky things.)  She knows better than to ever "taste" the stuff but sniffing is not out of the question.  I took one look at the wad and knew just what had deposited the "point of interest".  My friend the Yellow Night Heron had obviously been feasting on fiddler crabs recently.  The entire mass was nothing but assorted crab hulls.  A closeup view revealed whole claws, legs and backs of the unlucky crabs. The sun had dried and bleached the mess to the point that if ever touched it would most likely disintegrate but for now it was intact. This was fortunate for me since the sun had also "deodorized" the three inch long pellet.  I knew this to be from the Yellow Night Heron simply because its main diet is crustaceans.  In bleak times, the bird is not above asking for a handout of minnows but it truly prefers the crabs.  Since the bird cannot digest the hard hulls of the crabs it ingested, it spits them back out in a hard pellet-like mass.  This wad is sort of a mosaic of what the bird ate for dinner!  

  So!  If you ever want to find out just what your local Yellow Crowned Night Heron is doing whilst you are asleep at night (they do feed during the day, too, contrary to what their name indicates), just break open one of these regurgitated crab mosaics!  You can then view just how many and of what type crustacean the bird found as a meal.  Now...doesn't that just make you want to go investigate bird puke?  I thought not.  Although I must admit that I did find it interesting enough to photograph!  (Ha!  All of you folks who thought wildlife photographers only went around taking pictures of pretty birds, cute otters, handsome alligators and such have just been proven wrong! We also take pictures of some of the most disgusting things!)