black-crowned night heron

The black-crowned night heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with herons, cranes and egrets in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea nycticorax, based on specimens from southern Europe.{{cite book | last=Linnaeus | first=Carl | author-link=Carl Linnaeus | year=1758 | title= Systema Naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis | volume=1 | edition=10th | pages=142–143 | publisher=Laurentii Salvii | location=Holmiae (Stockholm) | language=Latin | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/727049 }} It is now placed in the genus Nycticorax that was described in 1817 by the English naturalist Thomas Forster for this species.{{ cite book | last=Forster | first=T. | author-link=Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster | year=1817 | title=A Synoptical Catalogue of British Birds; intended to identify the species mentioned by different names in several catalogues already extant. Forming a book of reference to Observations on British ornithology | publisher=Nichols, son, and Bentley | location=London | page=59 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13330976 }}{{cite web| editor1-last=Gill | editor1-first=Frank | editor1-link=Frank Gill (ornithologist) | editor2-last=Donsker | editor2-first=David | editor3-last=Rasmussen | editor3-first=Pamela | editor3-link=Pamela C. Rasmussen | year=2023 | title=Ibis, spoonbills, herons, Hamerkop, Shoebill, pelicans | work=IOC World Bird List Version 13.2 | url=https://www.worldbirdnames.org/bow/pelicans/ | publisher=International Ornithologists' Union | access-date=28 November 2022 }} The epithet nycticorax is from Ancient Greek and combines {{Lang|grc-Latn|nux}}, {{Lang|grc-Latn|nuktos}} meaning "night" and {{Lang|grc-Latn|korax}} meaning "raven". The word was used by authors such as Aristotle and Hesychius of Miletus for a "bird of ill omen", perhaps an owl. The word was used by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner in 1555 and then by subsequent authors for a black-crowned night heron.{{cite book| last=Gesner | first=Conrad | author-link=Conrad Gessner | title=Historiae animalium liber III qui est de auium natura. Adiecti sunt ab initio indices alphabetici decem super nominibus auium in totidem linguis diuersis: & ante illos enumeratio auium eo ordiné quo in hoc volumine continentur | year=1555 | publisher= Froschauer | location=Zurich | language=Latin | pages=602–603 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/52661484 }}{{cite book | last=Jobling | first=James A. | year=2010| title=The Helm Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names | publisher=Christopher Helm | location=London | isbn=978-1-4081-2501-4 | page=277 | url=https://archive.org/stream/Helm_Dictionary_of_Scientific_Bird_Names_by_James_A._Jobling#page/n277/mode/1up }}

Four subspecies are accepted:

• N. n. nycticorax (Linnaeus, 1758) – Eurasia south to Africa and Madagascar and east to east Asia, Philippines and Indonesian Archipelago
• N. n. hoactli (Gmelin, 1789) – southern Canada to northern Argentina and northern Chile; Hawaii
• N. n. obscurus (Bonaparte, 1855) – central and southern Chile and southwest Argentina
• N. n. falklandicus (Hartert, EJO, 1914) – Falkland Islands

In the Falkland Islands, the bird is called quark, which is an onomatopoeia similar to its name in many other languages, like qua-bird in English, {{Lang|nl|kwak}} in Dutch and West Frisian, {{Lang|cs|kvakoš noční}} in Czech, {{Lang|uk|квак}} in Ukrainian, {{Lang|ru|кваква}} in Russian, {{Lang|vi|vạc}} in Vietnamese, {{Lang|id|kowak-malam}} in Indonesian, {{Lang|nah|hoactli}} ("wactli") in Nahuatl (cf. the scientific name of the New World subspecies), and {{Lang|qu|waqwa}} in Quechua.

File:A Night Heron building a nest.JPGAdults have a black crown and back with the remainder of the body white or grey, red eyes, and short yellow legs. They have pale grey wings and white under parts. One to eight (mostly two to four) long slender white plumes, erected in greeting and courtship displays, extend from the back of the head. The sexes are similar in appearance although the males are slightly larger. Black-crowned night herons do not fit the typical body form of the heron family. They are relatively stocky with shorter bills, legs, and necks than their more familiar cousins, the egrets and "day" herons. Their resting posture is normally somewhat hunched but when hunting they extend their necks and look more like other wading birds. For a short period during courtship at the start of the nesting season, the legs of adults turn bright salmon-pink, and the bare skin around the eyes blue.Cramp, S. (1977): The Birds of the Western Palearctic, p. 262–269. Oxford. {{ISBN|0-19-857358-8}}{{ cite book | year=1992 | editor1-last=del Hoyo | editor1-first=J. | editor2-last=Elliott | editor2-first=A. | editor3-last=Sargatal | editor3-first=J. | title=Handbook of the Birds of the World | volume=1: Ostrich to Ducks | location=Barcelona, Spain | publisher=Lynx Edicions | isbn=84-87334-10-5 | page=419 }}

The subspecies differ little; nominate N. n. nycticorax and N. n. hoactli are particularly similar in plumage (some authors have considered N. n. hoactli a synonym of the nominate), but the latter is on average slightly larger. N. n. obscurus is the most distinctive subspecies, clearly darker than N. n. hoactli from further north in South America, but N. n. falklandicus is intermediate, with both paler and darker individuals occurring.

Immature birds have dull grey-brown plumage on their heads, wings, and backs, with numerous pale "teardrop" spots. Their underparts are paler and streaked with brown. Second and third year birds attain plumages increasingly similar to adults, but lacking the white head plumes. The young birds have orange eyes and duller yellowish-green legs. They are very noisy birds in their nesting colonies, with calls that are commonly transcribed as {{Not a typo|quok}} or {{Not a typo|woc}}.

Measurements:

• Length. N. n. nycticorax: {{cvt|58|-|65|cm}}; N. n. hoactli: {{cvt|22.8|–|26|in|cm|order=flip}}{{Cite web|title=Black-crowned Night Heron Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology|url=https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night-Heron/id|access-date=2020-09-26|website=www.allaboutbirds.org|language=en}}
• Weight. N. n. nycticorax: male {{cvt|600|-|800|g}}, female {{cvt|520|-|700|g}}; N. n. hoactli: {{cvt|25.6|–|35.8|oz|g|0|order=flip}}
• Wingspan. N. n. nycticorax: {{cvt|105|-|112|cm}}; N. n. hoactli: {{cvt|45.3|–|46.5|in|cm|order=flip}}

The breeding habitat is fresh and salt-water wetlands throughout much of the world. The nominate subspecies N. n. nycticorax breeds in Europe, Asia and Africa, subspecies N. n. hoactli in North and South America from Canada as far south as northern Argentina and Chile, N. n. obscurus in southernmost South America, and N. n. falklandicus in the Falkland Islands. Black-crowned night herons nest in colonies on platforms of sticks in a group of trees, or on the ground in protected locations such as islands or reedbeds. Three to eight eggs are laid.

This heron is migratory in the northern parts of its range, but is otherwise resident (even in the cold Patagonia). European birds winter in Africa (with a few staying in southern Spain), central and east Asian birds winter in southern Asia, and North American birds winters in Mexico, the southern United States, Central America, and the West Indies.

A colony of the herons has regularly summered at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., for more than a century.{{cite web|last1=Akpan|first1=Nsikan|date=12 May 2015|title=Smithsonian's mystery of the black-crowned night herons solved by satellites|url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/sciencescope-smithsonians-mystery-black-crowned-night-herons-solved-satellites/|website=PBS NewsHour|publisher=PBS|access-date=2 May 2016}} The birds also prominently live year-round in the shores around the San Francisco Bay, with the largest rookery in Oakland.{{Cite web|date=2019-05-24|title=Oakland Has Its First Official Bird Thanks to These Dedicated Kids|url=https://www.audubon.org/news/oakland-has-its-first-official-bird-thanks-these-dedicated-kids|access-date=2021-06-19|website=Audubon|language=en}} Their ever presence at Oakland's Lake Merritt and throughout the city's downtown area, as well as their resilience to the urban environment and displacement efforts, have led to them being named Oakland's official city bird.

There are two archaeological specimens of the black-crowned night heron in Great Britain. The oldest is from the Roman London Wall and the more recent from the Royal Navy's late medieval victualling yards in Greenwich.{{cite book | author1 = D.W. Yalden| author2 = U. Albarella | year = 2009 | title = The History of British Birds | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-019-958116-0}} It appears in the London poulterers' price lists as the Brewe, a bird which was thought to have been the Eurasian whimbrel or glossy ibis, which has now been shown to refer to the black-crowned night heron, derived from the medieval French Bihoreau.{{cite journal | author = W.R.P. Bourne | year = 2003 | title = Fred Stubbs, Egrets, Brewes and climatic change | journal = British Birds | volume = 96 | pages = 332–339}} Black-crowned night heron may have bred in the far wetter and wider landscape of pre-modern Britain. They were certainly imported for the table so the bone specimens themselves do not prove they were part of the British avifauna. In modern times the black-crowned night heron is a vagrant (excluding the feral breeding colonies that were established at Edinburgh Zoo from 1950 into the start of the 21st century{{cite book | editor1 = R.W. Forrester | editor2 = I.J. Andrews | year = 2007 | title = The Birds of Scotland Volume 1 | publisher = Scottish Ornithologists' Club | isbn = 978-0-9512139-0-2}} and at Great Witchingham in Norfolk, where there were eight pairs in 2003 but breeding was not repeated subsequentlyHolling M. and the Rare Breeding Birds Panel (2007) Non-native breeding birds in the United Kingdom 2003, 2004 and 2005 British Birds 100 638–649). A pair of adults were seen with two recently fledged juveniles in Somerset in 2017, which is the first proven breeding record of wild black-crowned night herons in Great Britain.{{cite web | url = http://www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/Wildlife-Trusts-Night-Herons-breed-in-Somerset-a-UK-first.aspx?s_id=2065125 | title = Night Herons breed in Somerset - a UK first | access-date = 2 August 2017 | publisher = Rare Bird Alert}}

File:Black-crowned night heron (61438).jpg

These birds stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey, mainly at night, early morning or evening. They primarily eat small fish, leeches, earthworms, mussels, squid,{{cite web | url=https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Nycticorax_nycticorax/ | title=Nycticorax nycticorax black-crowned night heron | website=Animal Diversity Web }} crustaceans (such as crayfish), frogs, other amphibians, aquatic insects, terrestrial insects, lizards, snakes, small mammals (such as rodents), small birds, eggs, carrion, plant material, and garbage and refuse at landfills. They are among the seven heron species observed to engage in bait fishing; luring or distracting fish by tossing edible or inedible buoyant objects into water within their striking range – a rare example of tool use among birds.{{Cite journal|last=Riehl|first=Christina|date=2001|title=Black-Crowned Night Heron Fishes with Bait|jstor=1522044|journal=Waterbirds: The International Journal of Waterbird Biology|volume=24|issue=2|pages=285–286|doi=10.2307/1522044}}{{Cite journal|last1=Ruxton|first1=Graeme D.|last2=Hansell|first2=Michael H.|date=2011-01-01|title=Fishing with a Bait or Lure: A Brief Review of the Cognitive Issues|journal=Ethology|language=en|volume=117|issue=1|pages=1–9|doi=10.1111/j.1439-0310.2010.01848.x|bibcode=2011Ethol.117....1R |issn=1439-0310}} During the day they rest in dense trees or bushes. N. n. hoactli is more gregarious outside the breeding season than the nominate race.{{citation needed|date=October 2024}}

A thorough study performed by J. Sitko and P. Heneberg in the Czech Republic in 1962–2013 suggested that the central European black-crowned night herons host eight helminth species. The dominant species consisted of Neogryporhynchus cheilancristrotus (62% prevalence), Contracaecum microcephalum (55% prevalence) and Opistorchis longissimus (10% prevalence). The mean number of helminth species recorded per host individual reached 1.41. In Ukraine, other helminth species are often found in black-crowned night herons too, including Echinochasmus beleocephalus, Echinochasmus ruficapensis, Clinostomum complanatum and Posthodiplostomum cuticola.

File:Nycticorax nycticorax 457953189.jpg|'Nominate N. n. nycticorax in Israel

File:Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax hoactli).jpg|N. n. hoactli, Tobago

File:Nycticorax nycticorax Tome Chile.JPG|N. n. obscurus, Tomé, southern Chile

File:Bihoreau Gris.jpg|Feeding

File:Black-crowned Night Heron Arches NP.jpeg|Wading, Arches National Park, Utah

File:Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) juvenile in flight.jpg|Juvenile in flight, Cyprus

File:Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) in flight.jpg|Adult in flight, Cyprus

File:Night Heron breakfast.jpg|Eating a goldfish, Toronto

File:Black-crowned Night Heron, juvenile, Nepal.jpg|Juvenile in flight, Nepal

File:Black-crowned Night Heron, close-up, India.jpg|Black-crowned Night Heron, close-up, India

File:Nycticorax nycticorax MHNT.jpg|Egg

{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite journal |last1=Sitko |first1=J. |last2=Heneberg |first2=P. |year=2015 |title=Composition, structure and pattern of helminth assemblages associated with central European herons (Ardeidae) |journal=Parasitology International |volume=64 |issue=1 |pages=100–112 |doi=10.1016/j.parint.2014.10.009|pmid=25449288 }}

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• {{cite web | last1=Blasco-Zumeta | first1=Javier | last2=Heinze | first2=Gerd-Michael | work=Identification Atlas of Aragon's Birds | title=Black-crowned Night Heron | url=http://blascozumeta.com/wp-content/uploads/aragon-birds/non-passeriformes/037.nightheron-nnycticorax.pdf | access-date=1 June 2018 | archive-date=25 October 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071051/http://blascozumeta.com/wp-content/uploads/aragon-birds/non-passeriformes/037.nightheron-nnycticorax.pdf | url-status=dead }}
• [https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black-crowned_Night_Heron Black-crowned Night Heron Species Account] – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• [https://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2020id.html Black-crowned night-heron - Nycticorax nycticorax] - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter

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black-crowned night heron

black-crowned night heron

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black-crowned night heron

black-crowned night heron

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