Yes, Large-mouth Bass do eat birds. I've seen them rise and take ducklings on several occassions and once a marsh wren that didn't even have a chance to react as the Bass came about a foot out of the water and snatched the wren off of a cattail that it was clinging to and singing from.

You'd be surprised by some other water creatures that eat birds. I once saw a huge Snapping Turtle come up underneath a young Common Galinule in Virgina, snatch it by the leg, and pull it under to drown. After a couple of minutes the Snapper came up again with the head and neck of the Gallinule hanging from its mouth! I've also seen Snappers and other turtles take ducklings and goslings.

I think the most surprising aquatic animal eating bird instance I've witnessed (in a post mortum of the eater) was a Bullfrog with a Hummingbird in its stomach in Arizona. I happened onto researchers in the field who had just recovered the Bullfrog from a trap, dispatched it, and were looking through stomach contents to see what the frog was eating. The Hummer was fully intact. The frog also had butterflies, dragonflies, a scorpion, and many many caterpillars in its crammed full stomach. I was told that the introduced Bullfrogs were truly causing major ecological disruption having displaced native desert frogs and toads in the few permanent pools in the desert and that their voracious ways were reducing numbers of small animal species that came to drink - even some bats and the ferocious Grasshopper Mouse, also called Wolf of the Desert due to its primary diet of animals including other mice and the fact that it "howls" as part of territorial definition.

Yes, a hungry bigmouth bass will take small birds. So will a lot of other aquatic animals.

Rob Conway
SW Portland
45.46?N 122.68?W (Elev. 473ft)
robin_birder at hotmail.com







Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:39:34 -0700
From: karenhank at yahoo.com
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Do Bass eat birds?



Several times this summer my wife and I have seen what appears to be a large-mouth bass attempting to eat a bird. The latest event occurred two days ago ten feet from where I was standing. A Barn Swallow flew low over the lake and a Large-mouth Bass rose out of the water in what appeared to be an attempt to catch the swallow. We have seen this several times this summer as well as a bass swim into the shallows in what appears to be an attempt to catch a Goldfinch drinking at the edge of the lake.

Hank Heiberg
Lake Joy
Carnation, WA
karenhankatyahoodotcom
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