Field Guide to Birds of North America
Black-crowned Night-Heron
General
Black-crowned Night-Heron: Medium-sized, stocky heron with short neck and legs, black upperparts, gray wings, and white to pale gray underparts. Bill is stout and black, eyes are red, and legs are yellow. Sexes are similar. Breeding adult develops long white plumes on back of head and red legs. Juvenile has brown, white-streaked upperparts, white, brown-streaked underparts, and yellow-green legs.
Range and Habitat
Black-crowned Night-Heron: Breeds throughout the U.S. (except Rocky Mountain region) to southern South America. Spends winters in southern half of U.S. Preferred habitats include swamps, streams, rivers, marshes, mud flats, and the edges of lakes that have become overgrown with rushes and cattails.
Listen to Call
Voice Text
"woe", "quock", "quaik"
Interesting Facts
The Black-crowned Night-Heron is a patient hunter. It will often stand still and just wait for a frog or other small animals to pass by. They may also hunt by vibrating their bills in the water to lure prey into investigating the disturbance.
Young Black-crowned Night-Herons often disgorge their stomach contents when disturbed. This is convenient for ornithologists who want to study their diet.
The adults of this species do not distinguish between their chicks and the chicks of other nests. They will brood chicks which are not their own.
A group of herons has many collective nouns, including a "battery", "hedge", "pose", "rookery", and "scattering" of herons."
Author
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Family
Herons and Egrets (Ardeidae)_blue
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Species
Nycticorax nycticorax
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Length25 - 28
Inches
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Wingspan44.5
Inches
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Black-crowned Night-Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron: Medium-sized, stocky heron with short neck and legs, black upperparts, gray wings, and white to pale gray underparts. Stout black bill, red eyes, and yellow legs. Feeds on small invertebrates, crustaceans, vertebrates, mammals, eggs and young of other birds, and plants.
● Song: "woe", "quock", "quaik"
● Foraging & Feeding: Black-crowned Night-Heron: Usually feeds in the evening or early morning. Diet consists of fish, leeches, earthworms, insects, crayfish, mussels, squid, amphibians, lizards, snakes, rodents, birds, eggs, carrion, plant materials, and garbage at landfills. Usually a solitary forager, it strongly defends its feeding territory.
● Breeding & nesting: Black-crowned Night-Heron: One to seven pale blue or green eggs are laid in a flimsy platform lined with roots and grass, built near the trunk of a tree or in branches. Usually nests in colonies. Incubation ranges from 21 to 26 days and is carried out by both parents.
● Similar species: Black-crowned Night-Heron: Adult is unmistakable; immature may be confused with American Bittern or juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. American Bittern lacks pale spots on upperwing, has black neck stripe, and more slender, paler bill. Juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron has smaller spots on greater secondary coverts, smaller spots on head and neck, thicker bill, and longer legs.
Flight Pattern
Direct flight with slow steady wing beats.
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BreedingMonogamous, Colonial
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PopulationStable or increasing in most areas
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MigrationMigratory
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Weight30.4
Ounces
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