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Green Heron — printable fact sheet
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Green Heron
Butorides virescens
Butorides virescens is one of the very small number of birds - and a smaller number still of non-corvid, non-parrot birds - that make and use tools. The heron drops bait onto the water surface: bread, insects, feathers, twigs, even discarded fishing lures, then stands motionless…
Did you know?
- Green Herons have been observed using bread, insects, feathers, or other objects as bait to catch fish—a rare example of tool use in birds.
- Baiting has been recorded in green herons in Florida, Japan and elsewhere, and some birds keep a stock of bait items and reuse them. The green in green heron is a greenish gloss on the back visible only in good light; most of the time the bird looks blue-gray. Chicks can climb out of the nest with wings and feet before they can fly, and clamber through branches like small reptiles.
What I learned
Draw the green heron
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