This common merganser's eyes might be a little bit bigger than its stomach.
It's not everyday you see a duck swallowing a big bass. If you hang around lakes long enough, there's a good chance you'll see a largemouth bass engulfing a baby duck or a smaller bird at some point. You'll see birds eating fish quite often, too. But you've probably never seen the roles reversed before.
Bass lure manufacturers make all kinds of topwater baits of things like birds, mice and snakes because of largemouths' aggressive tendencies. But the tides have certainly turned in this situation.
This common merganser pulls nothing short of a magic trick as it makes what looks to be about a 2-pound bass disappear into its stomach. The common merganser is a fairly large duck that uses fish as a primary food source. So, the fact that the duck is eating a fish isn't much of a surprise, but the size of the bass is.
That was nothing short of incredible. We had no idea a duck could down a prey item that large! In this video, you can barely see the long, red beak of the common merganser. That beak has serrated edges that help these birds grip their prey, making them more efficient hunters.
Those serrations probably played a big role in helping the duck secure that monster bass long enough to swallow it! How it managed to do that without choking to death is amazing. It helps that this species is a large sea duck. Their size makes it slightly easier to capture large prey items like this.
One of the positives for the merganser is that it probably won't have to hunt for more food for weeks. There aren't any positives for the fish, however.
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