By Lindsey Hernandez

Black-crowned Night Heron
Nycticorax nycticorax

Among the many egrets and herons spotted around Lady Bird Lake (or any body of water) this time of year, the squatty Black-crowned Night Heron will likely be there, hunched under the cover of leaves, neck scrunched into its body, faintly resembling Danny Devito’s portrayal of Penguin. The nocturnal Black-crowned Night Heron spends the night feeding, and the day standing still in the plants, trees and marsh near the water’s edge making the bird harder to spot.

Photo by Joao Saplak

However sinister the bird’s positioning may seem during the day, when the Black-crowned Night Heron takes flight, it’s contrasting pale gray belly and wings with black back and cap with a white long plume shimmer in the light. During breeding season, the black feathers from the head and back emit a bluish-green gloss and the legs become red.

During the night, the noisy and social heron feeds on fish, frogs, crustaceans, small mammals and even the young of other colonial-nesting waterbirds. Their digestive acids are so strong that bones that are consumed simply dissolve in their stomachs. The Black-crowned Night Heron is one of seven herons that “fishes” for fish by tossing a stick, or similar implement, onto the water as bait and then waiting to catch the animals who swim to the surface.

Photo by Joao Saplak.

Black-crowned night-herons usually nest colonially among reeds in marshes, or up to 160 feet above the ground in trees. Their nests are seemingly haphazard piles of reeds, sticks or twigs that may, over the years, become very bulky.

The Black-crowned Night Heron is the most widespread heron species in the world, breeding on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. In Travis County, the species may be seen year round.

Feature Drawing by Orville Rice circa 1960.

Sources include All About Birds and The Texas Breeding Bird Atlas