Yellow-crowned night-heron
Nyctanassa violacea
Identification Tips:
- Length: 21 inches Wingspan: 44 inches
- Sexes similar
- Fairly small, long-legged, short-necked heron
- Tucks neck in close to body in flight and often at rest, rarely
extending it
- Black bill
- Leg color varies with age, as with Black Crowns
- Long legs, with feet and part of legs extending beyond tail in
flight
Adult:
- Red eyes
- Blue-gray neck, chest, back and belly
- Dark centers to back feathers
- Pale yellowish forehead and buffy-white crown
- Black face and chin with broad white auricular stripe
Juvenile:
- Eyes yellowish to amber
- Head, neck, chest and belly dark gray-brown streaked finely with
buff and white
- Darker cap
- Wings and back darker brown with small white spots at the tips of
the feathers
- Greater secondary coverts with crisp white edgings and small
spots at tips
Immature:
- Gradually acquires adult plumage over 2 years, losing spotting and
streaking and gradually acquiring face and body plumage of adult
Similar species:
Adult unmistakable. Immatures separated from American Bittern
by pale spotting on the upperwing, reddish eye, lack of black neck
spot, different shape, stouter bills and more even upperwing
coloration in flight. Juvenile separated from juvenile
Black-crowned Night-Heron by pale edgings on greater secondary
coverts, smaller spots about head and neck, larger bill and longer
legs. Immatures can show a variety of plumage characters so are
best separated from immature Black-crowns by their larger, thicker
bill and longer legs, although if remnants of juvenile plumage or
the first hints of adult plumage can be seen, the identification
should be simplified.
Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.