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| Hooded Merganser in the Lily Pond, Golden Gate Park |
I had plenty of time to get the camera out of my knapsack when I spotted the female hooded merganser struggling to eat its large prey this morning. I couldn't tell it was a fish until I zoomed in, and I was able to fire off a few frames before it finally got the fish down the hatch, which it did while underwater.
I wondered how such big prey got past the bird's crop, but it turns out diving ducks don't have a crop, which many birds from sparrows to red-tails use to pre-digest their food. Instead, the prey of hooded mergansers gets ground up by the gizzard, which is part of its stomach and is tough enough to pulverize even crustaceans like crayfish. Although all birds have gizzards, few have such tough ones as the hooded merganser.
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| The hoodie holds onto its prey with a narrow, serrated beak. The fish appeared to be dead by this point, but Mergie still had a tough time getting it down the hatch. |
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| It almost seemed like Mergie was playing with her food, as here she has let go of the fish. On her next dive, she took the fish along for the ride and soon surfaced by herself, presumably having swallowed the fish while underwater. |
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| Another crop-less, gizzardy bird, this great egret was hunting along the edge of the Lily Pond. |
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