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Wildbuzz | The goddess of small hunts
In the quest for a frog hunt, award-winning wildlife photographer Anuj Jain stumbled upon extraordinary moments in the natural history of the egret; highly venomous Russell’s vipers were being hunted with consummate ease by egrets
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Fascinating are the tales of devout followers. The eastern cattle egret (Ardea coromanda), also known in local parlance as the “badami bagla”, follows large, grass-eating animals. It can be seen perched on buffalo backs or ambling alongside cattle to snap insects and other prey species flushed from vegetation by hulking bovine movements. The egret is a wily, focussed hunter whose eye is as keen and penetrating as the proverbial eagle.
Award-winning wildlife photographer Anuj Jain’s action-packed images have graced national and international publications. He figured out that egret stalking in the Saketri grasslands (east of Sukhna lake) could yield novel images. So, virtually every morning in July and August 2026, Jain could be found plunging into lush monsoon grasses on the buffalo spoor. He was especially eager to photograph an egret hunting a frog.
Fortune does favour the seeker. In the quest for a frog hunt, Jain stumbled upon extraordinary moments in the natural history of the egret. Highly venomous Russell’s vipers were being hunted with consummate ease by egrets. Though known in ornithological literature to hunt insects, frogs, lizards, snake hatchlings, etc, Jain’s record was a historical first for an egret preying on a viper.
Jain backed his photographic skills with sharp field observations. He described how the egret would clasp the head of the viper in a vice-like grip with its golden, stiletto-like bill and then bash the venomous victim on the ground, just like a kingfisher slams a struggling fish hard against a tree branch or rock. The ruthlessness with which egrets hammered vipers could well be compared to a dhobi thrashing the living daylights out of dirty laundry at the river ghat!
An exception to the method of hunting came in the guise of a large viper, which was first speared through its mouth and out of the back of the head by the stiletto bill, followed by a standard bashing by the egret. The 3–4-foot dangerous viper, once quelled, was swallowed by the egret, head first!
Hunting not only requires hard work, skill and lady luck, but the egret also has to be wary of the ‘pirates of the sky’. Jain photographed the egret catching hold of a marbled balloon frog, only to be pounced upon by a bigger hunter, the black kite. The egret dumped the frog to escape. But the kite failed to grab the abandoned frog, which lay motionless like a stone on the Saketri dirt track. The frog had earned a second life due to a timely clash of predators.
On another occasion, Jain’s camera captured an egret with a grasshopper kill. But the grasshopper dangling from the egret’s bill was noticed by a pair of Black drongos, which are second to none in tenacity. Upon observing the thieves making for the grasshopper kill, the egret took flight. The drongos, operating in tandem, made repeated aerial forays to snatch the grasshopper from the egret. But this time, the egret was favoured by the gods of hunting.
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