Great Blue Heron and Large Salamander

In April I was at Magnolia Plantation Gardens in Charleston, SC and photographed a "battle of the titans". A Great Blue Heron caught a large salamander called a Greater Siren and fought with it for more than twenty minutes before losing it. It actually punctured the Siren three times with its beak. The salamander was about 24" long and around an inch and a half in diameter. It was so heavy that the Heron would have to pin it against the vegetation in the water to rest its neck. I shot a 62 shot sequence from the time the heron first spotted the salamander until the salamander escaped. I've included three shots from early in the process until just before he lost it.

Second image.

Third image.

Very interesting event and sequence of images. I wonder how old the salamander is? How long does it take them to reach this size? If it takes a long time then how did it escape the herons in the past?

Yikes, i've never seen a GBH with such heavy prey. The salamander probably had little chance of survival with all hose punctures.
Great series!

sandy r

That's pretty fasciniting. I can't imagine the salamander survived that even if it got away. I photographed a great egret taking a full size american eel recently (I'll post the photos on this forum this evening) and it is amazing how much fight both animals put into it and how these birds are willing to take such large prey. I'd imagine it makes it awful diffuclt for them to fly afterwards. . .

Btw, those photographs are also fantastic technicially/aesthetically. Beautiful lighting, sharp as a tack and crystal clear.

An amazing series Bill. I'm always interested in seeing these interesting behaviors and often the images don't have the quality you have here. Pretty darned neat!

Great series! I am amazed that the Salamander escaped. They are deadly birds.

Peter

Nice series, the battle would have been something to see