Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

 

August 6th

          We found out around noon yesterday that a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron had been found in Euclid which is on the east side of Cleveland.  I had a mah jongg game in the afternoon (very important), but we actually thought about chasing the bird after that.  In the end, we decided that was a little too crazy even for us.  Someone did relocate the bird in the evening, so we decided to go after it this morning.

          We left about 7:30am which is a much more reasonable hour.  We arrived at the Euclid Creek Reservation about two hours later.  Although we had fairly detailed information about where to look for the night-heron, but it took us a little while to find him.  Fortunately, he was out in the open and we were able to get good scope views. 

This bird was an immature night-heron and there are several identifying features to differentiate it from its cousin the much more common, Black-crowned Night-Heron.  The juvenile, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron has a long neck, long legs, an all-black bill, and small white spots on its wings.  In contrast, the juvenile, Black-crowned Night-Heron is stockier, has a short neck, shorter legs, a yellow bill, and large white spots on its wings.  It was fairly easy to identify the bird.

          The Yellow-crowned Night-Heron can be found year-around throughout Florida and along the gulf coast.  In the summer it breeds throughout much of the south but is quite rare in Ohio.  During late summer and fall young birds often wander north and west of their normal range. 

          Yellow-crowned Night-Herons slowly stalk prey in or near shallow water.  They perch quietly on stumps and tree branches, often over water.  The majority of their prey is crustaceans, especially crabs and crayfish.

(1 new species, total for the year 288)

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (rare)

                             Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (immature)

                                           Another view



Comments

  1. AnnAugust 7, 2022 at 5:58 AM

    You are going to be able to write a book about where to bird in Ohio.

    ReplyDelete

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