A Single Strand - Black-Crowned Night Heron

by Emmy Vickers

Title

A Single Strand - Black-Crowned Night Heron

Artist

Emmy Vickers

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

A Single Strand - Black-Crowned Night Heron. These awesome herons migrate to the Smithsonian National Zoo every year. Apparently these and other wild birds have been doing this since 1889, before the zoo was even established. The zoo has a special place designated to them in the bird section of the zoo; a place they call home. Though you can find many of these herons throughout the zoo, you will find most of them in the bird area, as well as up in the trees. Look up, you never know what you might see.

About the Black-Crowned Night Heron: Black-crowned night herons do not fit the typical body form of the heron family. They are relatively stocky and about 25 inches tall 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.

Adult black-crowned night herons have black caps and backs, pale gray wings, white underparts, red eyes, and yellow legs. Two or three long 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. Immature birds have dull gray-brown plumage on their heads, wings, and backs, with numerous pale spots. Their underparts are paler and streaked with brown. 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 quok or woc. Herons feed primarily on fish, but also take eggs and young of other birds, amphibians, small mammals, crabs, mollusks, and other invertebrates. To see this information and more: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Birds/Facts/fact-blknightheron.cfm.
Emmy Vickers,
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PHOTO FEATURED IN:
(1) Artists Best Five Artwork Group Abfa Group - 07/19/2015
(2) A Birding Group - Wings -- 02/16/2016

Thank you Administrators for the feature, support, and continuous encouragement. I really appreciate you and all you do!

Uploaded

July 12th, 2015

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