Looks like a BIG crayfish - there are a few species which might be found
there that would grow large enough to be the mystery beastie and
crayfish are fairly common prey item for Hoodies.
Just a guess - hard to say for sure.
Stephen Living
Watchable Wildlife Biologist
Virginia Dept. of Game & Inland Fisheries
-----Original Message-----
From: va-bird-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:va-bird-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cliff Otto
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:04 PM
To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Va-bird] Hooded Merganser eating overly ripe banana
This afternoon at Ben Brenman park I photographed a male Hooded
Merganser trying mightily to eat something. After several flips up,
drops, and retrievals, it finally swallowed it. I suspect it was a fish,
but even when zooming in on the larger original pictures, I cannot say
for certain. You can see a sequence of pictures at:
http://www.pbase.com/bb_etc/cameron_station
Cliff Otto
Alexandria
