ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS
THE HERONS (Family Ardeida)
The Night Herons
(Nycticorax and Nyctanassa), so called from the fact that they are mainly nocturnal in their habits, are medium-sized Herons, ranging from eighteen to about twenty-four inches in length, of very stout, thick build, with large, thick heads and very thick bills.
The prevailing colors are bluish gray, black, and white; but the plumage of the mature birds is exceedingly different from that of the young, being in the latter mainly brownish, striped longitudinally with white; the sexes are, however, similar in each stage, while in the adults there are two or three exceedingly long, thread-like, white occipital plumes.
About a dozen Night Herons are known, two forms being found in North America. The genus is nearly cosmopolitan, except that it does not range very far north. Perhaps the best-known, and certainly the most widely distributed, species is the Black-crowned Night Heron (N. nycticorax), which ranges from central and southern Europe to the Indian peninsula, China, Japan, the Malay Peninsula, and Africa, and the American form of it which is found from the British possessions to the Falkland Islands and the West Indies.
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