#night herons

[spinus-pinus]

Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax

12/19/2025 Orange County, California

I, for one, welcome our new night heron overlords

[cornflowerbluedreams]

[valentinemira]

this eye contact hellooo??!

[antiqueanimals]

Wings Along the Waterway. Written and illustrated by Mary Barrett Brown. 1992.

Internet Archive

[feral-mannequin]

The skeksis crop this year is phenomenal.

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Black-crowned Night-Heron

Photo: Brandon Trentler

"Seen by day, these chunky herons seem dull and lethargic, with groups sitting hunched and motionless in trees near water. They become more active at dusk, flying out to foraging sites, calling 'wok' as they pass high overhead in the darkness. Some studies suggest that they feed at night because they are dominated by other herons and egrets by day. A cosmopolitan species, nesting on every continent except Australia and Antarctica."

- Audubon Field Guide

[rjzimmerman]

A Chicago museum disrupted an endangered bird's habitat

Renovations to the Chicago History Museum in 2021 drove black-crowned night herons away from their annual breeding grounds. The birds have not returned, conservationists say.

This article tells us that the environmental review of the project was conducted by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Based on my experience with the IDNR, any species that was to be protected was doomed once the IDNR got involved. That department is as corrupt as any in Illinois, if not more so because it’s generally hiding in the bushes. Of course the IDNR was going to take care of the corporation owning and operating the Chicago History Museum and the construction companies that were going to construct the renovations.

Congratulations Chicago and Illinois. You’ve proven you’re as corrupt as the news media says you are.

Excerpt from this story from the National Geographic:

In 2021, the museum broke ground on an effort to modernize its shaded lawns. The project included the construction of a walking trail with signs highlighting Chicago history, the installation of native plantings, and the reinforcement of the ceiling above its leaky underground archives. The work was designed, in part, to make the space a more attractive venue for high-dollar events like weddings and fundraisers.

The area, however, was also adjacent to a long-standing breeding ground for at least 45 pairs of black-crowned night herons, which are listed as endangered in the state of Illinois. Museum officials were not only aware of the herons, staff and visitors even enjoyed having an endangered bird’s rookery on the museum’s grounds.

“The birds had been around for a while,” John Russick, senior vice president of the museum, told National Geographic. “It was kind of cool that they were here.”

Yet museum officials appeared to minimize possible damage to the birds’ rookery that a major construction project would cause. Based on the museum’s limited assessment of the birds, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources conducted a brief environmental review and found the renovation posed little risk of disruption to the herons. Teams of workers arrived in March of 2021, just before the herons’ annual springtime nesting season. The crews operated loud equipment at times only a few yards from the rookery.

Soon after, the birds abandoned their nests. Weeks later, crows were seen scavenging on dead nestlings. In 2022, a handful of male herons returned to the site, but after failing to attract mates, they left.

[meklarian]

Black-Crowned Night Heron Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Huntington Beach, CA, 2017

For @wittyclitty. An elegant bird, but also very much a bond villain in their own right.