Yellow-crowned Night-Heron - The Crab Hunter

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

On a casual visit to Oistins on Saturday morning (March 19th), I came across one of the most mysterious, and rare birds on our island, in one of the most public places.  This bird, a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (Nyctanassa violacea), is nocturnal and loves to eat crustaceans, especially crabs.  I was able to observe this pre-historic looking bird for a few minutes and documented, with photographs,  it catching and devouring a Blackback Land Crab (Gecarcinus lateralis), but before doing that, it did this.

The heron regurgitated a half-eaten crab, with feet and claws missing.

Then proceeded to re-consume some of the regurgitated pieces. Seeing that prompted a few questions in my mind, did the bird kill its prey then removed the feet and claws? Knowing how hard a crab's shell is, I wondered if the heron had a method of softening the shell before eating it? 

Those questions were soon answered when the night-heron's attention was drawn to movement at the base of a nearby tree.  It approached the tree purposefully but cautiously, with a laser focus attention on the area of movement, only briefly broken by the nosey approach of an airplane making its way to the nearby Grantley Adams International Airport.  With a lightning strike, the bird had a Blackback Land Crab firm in its bill.       

The night-heron moved its prey to an open area 

After tossing it around in its bill for a bit, the bird swallowed the still alive crab whole. I found this very intriguing, the bird just ate a crab, shell and all. What type of digestive system does this bird have?   A search on the topic led me to the Houston Audubon webpage that dealt with the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. A fun fact at the bottom of the page stated in part that Yellow-crowned Night-Herons excrete stomach acid strong enough to dissolve the shells of crawfish, crabs … 

What an amazing bird, one of the many, though rare, you see on the beautiful island of Barbados.  

Stay Safe and enjoy your birding.