Black-crowned night-heron

Black-crowned night-heron

Identification Tips:

• Length: 20 inches Wingspan: 44 inches
• Sexes similar
• Fairly small, stocky, short-legged and short-necked heron
• Bill medium-sized and pointed
• Tucks neck in close to body in flight and at rest, rarely extending it

Appearance:

• Red eyes, legs yellow
• Black bill
• Black crown and back
• White face, throat, foreneck, chest and belly
• Blue-gray wings
• Two long, white, filamentous plumes extending from back of head in alternate plumage

I had a chance to do some studies on this hardy little heron at the Baylands Preserve yesterday.

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Note that the juvenile BCNH looks very different from the adults.

Juvenile:

• Eyes yellowish to amber, legs dull greyish
• Yellow base to bill
• Brown head, neck, chest and belly streaked with buff and white
• Wings and back darker brown with large white spots at the tips of the feathers; spots especially large on the greater secondary coverts

Here's an example, taken June '05.

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Thank to all for your kind comments.

Frank, the red eyes are a little freaky. I'm not sure whether they need Visine or an exorcist. I like their "pigtails". Makes them look like hippie birds - lol.

 

Actually, I have one, Jeff. I've used it on both my 80-200 and 180, and it works pretty well. But there's a cost in terms of effective aperture, AF speed, and image quality, so I prefer to used the unburdened lenses.

Hehehe. Normally true, but in this case, I was so close to the birds that I had to back off from the 200mm setting for many of my shots. This shot, for instance, is a crop of a frame that was taken at 112mm.

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They are hilarious. Their gurgling had me giggling while I was shooting  .