Can you see the predator hiding in the brush? The heron didn’t, Texas photos show

With his lens fixed on a great blue heron swooping down from the sky, Jacob Hall didn’t see the danger hiding in the brush — and neither did the bird, Texas photos show.

Hall was visiting Canada Ranch, near the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, and snapping photos of the southeast Texas splendor when he spotted the bird, he told McClatchy News.

But as it soared toward a pond, a sneaking predator suddenly launched out from the tall grass and tackled it mid-flight — a bobcat sinking teeth and claws into its feathery flesh, photos show.

Hall wasn’t sure what happened at first, he said. To his eye, the blue heron “fell out of the sky.”

“It wasn’t until after I took the photos that I realized what I had just captured,” Hall said, adding that he snapped two shots back-to-back.

In the first photo, the bobcat can just barely be seen on the bottom right, gazing intently at its prey.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shared Hall’s photos in a March 1 Facebook post, and some commenters couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the blindsided heron — though there was less sympathy for the countless frogs and fish the heron likely gobbled up in its lifetime.

“It can be hard for some of us to witness wildlife interactions like the one this photographer captured in coastal Texas, but it’s a key part of the way that our ecosystems work,” wildlife officials said in the post.

As for Hall, he just feels lucky to have witnessed it.

“Capturing both of those photos is something that I will never forget,” he said.

The Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge is roughly 60 miles east of Houston.

This story was originally published March 5, 2024 at 9:57 AM with the headline "Can you see the predator hiding in the brush? The heron didn’t, Texas photos show."