We were driving down the road towards the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge this morning and spotted this heron coming out of the canal along the side of the road. It had caught something, and was struggling to get airborne.

The heron flew out right in front of us, going down the road in the same direction. We had to slow down to keep from running over it. At first we thought it had a snake, but then we could see it looked like an eel. We followed the heron down the road for a minute, until it flew back over into the brush along the side of the road. We pulled over to watch. Click read more to see what happened...

Coming in for a landing with its cargo...

Hmm... now what?

OK, I think I can swallow this thing...

Oops, quite a predicament...

The eel almost gets a stranglehold...

Slurp...

Gulp... the heron prevails.

We didn't catch the whole struggle on film. It was hilarious to watch, though. The heron kept shaking the eel loose and throwing it on the ground and stabbing at it with his beak, until it finally got the eel in position to swallow it alive and whole. It happened so fast I didn't catch the coup de grâce except for the eel's tail disappearing.