Can a grey heron (Ardea cinerea) catch and swallow a large eel?
Judging by the images below, it would certainly seem so.
I captured this scene in April 2026 along the banks of the Altopiano canal, near the Ca’ di Mezzo artificial wetland, situated in the municipality of Codevigo, in the province of Padua, Italy.
But how does the heron manage to swallow a ‘capitone’, the term used to describe a large eel?
Thanks to its digestive system, which I will briefly describe in this article.
First of all, it should be underline that the grey heron feeds mainly on small mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles and the nestlings of other birds. In the specific case described in the article, the grey heron was lucky enough – from its point of view – to catch a large eel.
As can be seen from the photos, the heron has a long, very pointed beak with which it pierces and firmly grasps its prey.
The heron swallows the fish head-first for the simple reason that this allows them to slide easily down into the digestive tract, and their scales do not damage the internal organs in this way.
Using its beak and tongue, the heron guides its prey down its oesophagus.
In herons, the oesophagus is very elastic and features a section that can expand further, known as the crop. These characteristics of the oesophagus enable herons to swallow large prey whole.
In the photo below, you can see the characteristic bulge on the neck of the heron, which has just swallowed a large eel.
Food passes from the oesophagus into the stomach, which in birds consists of two parts: the proventriculus and the ventriculus.
In the proventriculus, also known as the glandular stomach, food is broken down by gastric juices. The food then passes into the ventriculus, also known as the muscular stomach, for grinding. In other words, the ventriculus performs the function that our teeth are designed for: chewing.
This explains why we often see some birds swallowing small pebbles. Particularly in the case of granivorous birds, these small pebbles help to grind the seeds in the ventricle, as seeds are much more difficult to ‘grind’ than, for example, a piece of meat or fish.
The food then continues its journey through the final section of the large intestine – the colon and the rectum – which ends at the cloaca and the cloacal orifice.
To conclude, what can we say?
Birds in general have a highly developed digestive tract that enables them to digest food very quickly. Under normal conditions, they do not store much food in their bodies for long periods, nor do they accumulate fat, as any excess weight would make their flight even more energy-intensive. In the specific case of the heron, isn’t an eel of that size perhaps too large a prey for its physical characteristics?
Video. A grey heron (Ardea cinerea) catch and swallow a large eel
///
Author’s Notes
Photo and video by Maurizio Romio ©. To take the photographs and shoot the video, I used an OM SYSTEM OM-1 MARK II camera body and an OM System M.Zuiko ED 150–600mm f/5.0–6.3 IS Sync telephoto lens.