This is a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron (Nyctanassa violacea). As you can see and despite the name, these birds WILL come out during the day! This bird was very still and hardly moved for the hours we were nearby. Every once in awhile, it would squawk in a loud, harsh way, and fly off after something. I don’t know how successful it’s hunting was because I never did see if it caught anything. According to my excellent field guide, Birds of Texas (Arnold & Kennedy, 2007), it prefers to eat crustaceans like crabs and crayfish, but will eat fish too. The marsh area of the Forth Worth Nature Preserve is positioned between the Trinity River and riparian forest. This is not the most common habitat for the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, but this one seemed pretty content.
This is breeding season for this and many other species of birds. The white feather (plume) shown here is part of the heron’s breeding plumage. The males and females look similar and so they both get to sport these snazzy white feathers.
BTW, I have a stack of field guides that I use regularly. I had misplaced the one I mentioned earlier and am so glad I found it - it is my favorite. If you’re interested, here’s a link.
July 28th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
[...] & Refuge, but I have decided to condense into one last article. As excited as I was about the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, I have to say, I was most excited about the abundant and accessible Prothonotary Warblers. I have [...]