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Black-crowned Night Heron — printable fact sheet
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Black-crowned Night Heron
Nycticorax nycticorax
This heron went nocturnal, and everything about it follows from that. It is squat and short-necked where day herons are lanky, because it does not need to stalk at long range in bright light; it has huge red eyes tuned for low light; and it hunts at dusk and through the night, w…
Did you know?
- Young Black-crowned Night Herons look completely different from adults, with brown, streaky plumage that provides camouflage in their wetland habitats.
- Adults raise two or three long, narrow white plumes from the back of the head during display, holding them flat the rest of the time. Nestlings defend themselves by projectile-vomiting and defecating on anything that climbs to the nest, which is a genuine hazard for researchers. Night-herons nest colonially in trees, sometimes in the middle of cities, and a New York colony has occupied islands in the East River for generations.
What I learned
Draw the black-crowned night heron
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