{"id":230414,"date":"2018-07-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/how-to-eat-a-dragonfly\/"},"modified":"2018-07-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T07:00:00","slug":"how-to-eat-a-dragonfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/how-to-eat-a-dragonfly\/","title":{"rendered":"How to eat a dragonfly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By David D. Cooksy<\/p>\n<p><em>[Editor\u2019s note: This is the third of a four-part \u201chow to\u201d series. Look for \u201cHow to eat a crawdad\u201d in a future issue.]<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This series is a description of the hunting and consumption of prey by the big birds of Mission Trails Regional Park. In the first segment, I described how a great blue heron (<em>ardea herodias<\/em>) captured and consumed a bullfrog; in the second, how a great blue heron ate a catfish. In this segment, I describe how a snowy egret (<em>egretta thula<\/em>) catches and consumes a dragonfly.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7554\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7554\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Untitled-1-copy.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7554 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Untitled-1-copy.jpg\" alt=\"How to eat a dragonfly\" width=\"600\" height=\"517\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 600px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 600\/517;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7554\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(clockwise from top left) The snowy egret stalks, catches then swallows a dragonfly in Mission Trails Park. <em>(Photos by David D. Cooksy)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If catching prey represents the most difficult step of a meal, the snowy egret displays masterful hunting skills when catching a dragonfly. In fact, for one I recently photographed, it was so easy, the meal was literally snatched out of the air as it flew past.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Untitled-1-copy-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7556 alignright lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Untitled-1-copy-1.jpg\" alt=\"How to eat a dragonfly\" width=\"256\" height=\"316\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 256px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 256\/316;\" \/><\/a>As with the way the blue heron eats a bullfrog or catfish, before consuming prey a certain preparation by the snowy egret is required. In the case of the dragonfly, the snowy egret crunches the insect in its bill, drops it on the ground, steps on it, picks it up, tosses it in the air, catches it, crunches it again \u2026 repeats these steps as necessary.<\/p>\n<p>After properly prepared, prey is consumed head first. The snowy egret manipulates the dragonfly into position and, with some difficulty, swallows it down.<\/p>\n<p>While photographing the sequences of bullfrog and catfish, it was difficult to determine whether the prey was still alive after the considerable preparation. However, I am quite certain the dragonfly was still alive as the wings were buzzing.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 David D. Cooksy is a trail guide at Mission Trails Regional Park.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David D. Cooksy [Editor\u2019s note: This is the third of a four-part \u201chow to\u201d series. Look for \u201cHow to eat a crawdad\u201d in a future issue.]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1075,"featured_media":224773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"How to eat a dragonfly","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1075"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}