Well, I think they have to be small at some point in their lifecycle, so the size doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that this looks rather obviously faked.
@ashleyjwilson - I'm not sure...could still be faked, but there is more than one photo...there's a video on this page that shows the rest of the images...
It would have taken a lot of editing to make all of those, and, it would be amazingly idiotic to me for someone to waste that much time editing a bird eating something : / just sayin...
Not sure why the Sea Lab which is run by the State of Alabama would risk its reputation without doing a lot of research into the photos first. Also to edit 200 photos to look legit (with reflections in the water) would seem a bit much. It has been a tough year for the Gulf ecosystem, so maybe the heron are forced to expand their diet.
To all that have commented on the Heron eating the Stingray, I assure all of you the photo's are real..I took them, I was walking on a beach in Biloxi Mississippi on a Sunday morning with camera in hand, photographing the very Heron eating small fish...then he submerged his head and came up with a Stingray impaled. I proceeded to take many photos of the event until he finally consumed the ray, barb and all..it took eleven minutes. The Dauphin Island Sea lab absolutely validated the photos because I provided all of them to them. It took over a year for the Scientific Journal Waterbirds to finally publish the paper. Atlantic Stingrays actually start off much smaller when they are born, the ray in the picture was about a foot wide...again the species of Stingray in these waters normally do not grow that big, unlike manta rays and other ocean going species, this body of water was a shallow bay, not the ocean or gulf. Hope this clears up any questions anyone else might have...thanks for the comments..
Thanks Laura, I took over 200 shots of the actual event, so plenty of "factual" documentation, no editiing at all other then cropping the photos to get a closer look. I even stayed with the Heron for about 15 minutes after he consumed the ray, he walked around for about another 5 minutes, drank some water and proceeded to fly about 300 yards away and land on a post and sit...I got tired of watching him and eventually left him...very alive...
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It would have taken a lot of editing to make all of those, and, it would be amazingly idiotic to me for someone to waste that much time editing a bird eating something : / just sayin...
http://blog.al.com/live/2011/04/stingray_for_breakfast.html
http://www.houstonzoo.org/baby-stingrays/
Not sure why the Sea Lab which is run by the State of Alabama would risk its reputation without doing a lot of research into the photos first. Also to edit 200 photos to look legit (with reflections in the water) would seem a bit much. It has been a tough year for the Gulf ecosystem, so maybe the heron are forced to expand their diet.