Backyard and Beyond

This Yellow-crowned Night Heron was belying its name and hunting during the day. Fiddler crabs were the bird’s target. Stalking oh-so-slowly until the final jab with this heavy bill. The crabs were swallowed whole. Watched half a dozen meet this fate over ten minutes. These herons nest here in the city, usually at its edges. In general, I don’t see them inland as much as Black-crowned Night Herons.

And, boy, do they like crabs! This Cornell page on diet lists ten different types of crabs, along with much else that goes into their gullets.
***

As a student of American history, I’ve taken it as a given there’s a deep state, founded in 1974 with the National Security Act. It’s not the “Deep State” Trump and his Fox choir rail about, but it certainly has grown some way beyond democracy.