Move over, pizza rat; a blue heron is the city’s new icon.
A rat was quite the snack for a great blue heron that was caught on camera eating the rodent in Central Park.
A video shared on Twitter by the Manhattan Bird Alert account shows the heron standing in water and chowing down on the rat at the New York City park.
“It took the Great Blue Heron only a few seconds to lift the rat, once killed, out of the water and swallow it—this morning at the Central Park Pond,” reads the tweet, which was shared Sunday.
An earlier tweet Sunday by Manhattan Bird Alert included a photo that shows the bird with half of the rat already in its mouth.
“Great Blue Herons eat plenty of fish, but they won’t pass up a meaty and filling New York City rat —this morning at the Central Park Pond,” that tweet reads.
The nonprofit environmental group Audubon describes a great blue heron’s diet as being “Highly variable and adaptable.”
“Eats mostly fish, but also frogs, salamanders, turtles, snakes, insects, rodents, birds,” reads a description of the species on the organization’s website.
