Monster Crayfish!

I watched the lone Pied-billed Grebe hanging out with a few Canada Geese at Goose Lake. From what I could tell by the shoreline, the Grebe had what I thought was a large bluegill. He was struggling with it's size, and kept dropping it, and then diving to catch it again... I took a few shots, but the distance and lighting angle were not favorable, so I moved on.



I had no idea until I processed the frames that the meal he was trying so hard to hold on to, was a giant Crayfish. Had I known that the lil Grebe had quite the prize, I would have stuck it out and seen how he managed to eat this thing or give up.



Looking at this thing on the computer screen made me want to conduct a semi-scientific experiment to determine the size of the crayfish. The information I had was a general reference to Pied-billed Grebes length being around 15 inches, so...I measured the grebe on screen and sized it to 15 inches using a real ruler. Then, I measured the crayfish and found it to be around 9 inches without factoring in the claws. That's a meaty crayfish or should I say lobster!

It was also curious that this crayfish was even in this lake which is quite small. A little over a month ago, the entire lake was dried up, so how this thing survived is a bit of a mystery...and amazing!