Black-crowned Night-Heron

Nycticorax nycticorax
STANFORD LOCATIONS:

Seen in the evenings on the lawn between the Quad and the Oval.
  
Nest
Location
Nest
Type
Eggs
Mating System
Dev.
Parental Care
Primary &
2ndary Diet
Foraging
Strategy
MF
I: 24-26 DAYS
SEMIALTRICIAL 1
SHRUB
 15-30 feet
(0-60 feet)
MF
3-5
(1-7)
MONOG
F: 42-49 DAYS
MF
AQUATIC
INVERTS
BREEDING: Marshes, swamps, ponds, lakes, lagoons, mangroves; occ grassland, rice fields. 1 brood.
DISPLAYS: On tree male bows, stretches neck, erects breast feathers and back plumes, calls. Female responds similarly. Pair bills, plumage smooth.
NEST: In tree, shrub, cattails, occ concealed in dense undergrowth. Often fragile, loose, of sticks, twigs, reeds; occ substantial. Scantily lined with finer materials. Perennial.
EGGS: Light bluish/greenish. 2.0" (52 mm).
DIET: Mainly fish, usu from within territory; also insects, eggs and young birds (esp terns, heron, ibis), small mammals, amphibians (esp in spring), other lower vertebrates. Young fed regurgitant, later mostly fish, unpredigested.
CONSERVATION: Winters s to S.A., but esp Cuba and C.A. Blue List 1972-81, Special Concern 1982, Local Concern 1986; stable or increasing in most areas.
NOTES: Usu in small to large colony. Pair defend nest. First breed at 1-3 yr, usu 2-3. Clutch larger in n. Young hatch asynchronously; very noisy. Forage at dawn, dusk, and at night. Roost in trees. In day, attacked by "day" herons.
ESSAYS: Precocial and Altricial Young; Blue List; Coloniality; Communal Roosting.
REFERENCES: Custer et al., 1983; Hancock and Kushlan, 1984; Tremblay and Ellison, 1980.

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Except for Stanford Locations, the material in this species treatment is taken, with permission, from The Birder's Handbook (Paul Ehrlich, David Dobkin, & Darryl Wheye, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1988).