I’m walking up to the North beach tip at Fort Desoto looking for shorebirds. I saw the above night heron in the sand dunes. I realized he had a ghost crab in his beak.

I didn’t want to spook him and get too close. This is highly cropped.

All of a sudden the crab gets away with one leg still in the heron’s mouth. The crab is running off to the right.

In seconds, the heron goes after him and gets him right before he gets too far into the reeds.

The night heron has the crab again.

I’m waiting for the big gulp shot. The heron continues to hang on to the crab. He’s probably waiting for the crab to stop biting.

He continues to move the crab around in his mouth. All I could think of was “I wish the sun would come out.” I had to settle for cloudy shots.

Finally, he looks like he’s going for the big gulp.

And all I got was a “big crab leg in front of the eye” shot. It was still fun to watch him enjoy his crab. Although he had to work hard for this breakfast.