Nice to come home from an idle wander with a crazy shot like this.

This Anhinga speared a relatively massive Mayan cichlid in the pond at Indian Riverside Park. I couldn’t imagine how this was going to work out. So I had to keep watching.

It started just as I was getting ready to leave after an hour of walking around the park on a beautiful Florida-winter morning and spotted the anhinga rising from the deep with a fresh catch.

There was some maneuvering and the anhinga dropped the fish once or twice.

It worked to get the fish into the right position for what was to come.

It’s going to figure out that this fish is too big to swallow, I thought.

It can’t possibly.

How is this happening?

What??

I am learning something about anhinga throats right now.

Geez, there’s a whole fish in that bird’s neck!

The fattened bird toddled off to the edge of the pond and sipped some water…

…then slid away, well fed.

I believe this is the same bird, a bit earlier in my walk. It’s a female or immature male, by the color of the neck. Males’ necks are black.