Squatting on the water's edge, the Black-crowned Night-Heron is a short-legged, able fisher.

The genus name "Nycticorax" means night-croaker; fittingly, the bird is often heard at dusk as it flies overhead with a harsh "quork!" Breeding on every continent except Australia and Antarctica, the Black-crowned Night-Heron is the second most widespread heron in North America.

The Black-crowned Night-Heron breeds across most of the United States, except for the Appalachian Mountains into Maine, the upper Great Lakes, and the arid northern plains. The birds' breeding range extends into south central Canada and northeast along the St. Lawrence River. Most winter coastally on the Atlantic from New England through Florida, around the Gulf Coast, and on the Pacific from southern Oregon south. Black-crowned Night-Herons occur throughout most of South America outside the central Amazon watershed.

 

A legend for the range map to the right can be found here.

With a few important, regional exceptions, most Black-crowned Night-Heron populations have been increasing since the 1960s. Increases are most significant in scattered locations like Louisiana, the southern Atlantic coast, many parts of California, and the Dakotas. Regional losses appear widespread and difficult to reverse in southern Florida, southern Minnesota, southeastern Pennsylvania, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf Coast of Texas, and central Wisconsin. The Black-crowned Night-Heron is listed as "endangered" in Indiana and Pennsylvania, "threatened" in Kentucky, Maine  and New Jersey, a "species of greatest conservation need" in Maryland and New York, and a "species of special concern" in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Heron plumes could once fetch $32 per ounce. But the end of the feather trade in the early 1900s, along with the control of DDT in the 1980s, helped stabilize and then increase Black-crowned Night-Heron populations. Recently, the herons have benefited from the spread of aquaculture and islands created by dredging in Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and the Great Lakes. Where their presence is deemed a threat, farm managers can obtain permits to kill and repulse herons with noise makers, like night-heron distress calls. For this species and other wading birds, chemical threats such as insecticides and waste pits at oil refineries may kill up to two million birds per year.

 

Black-crowned Night-Herons occasionally pose threats to other nesting species. Given their omnivorous diet and nocturnal habits, they may enter colonies of ground-nesting species such as gulls, terns, and Piping Plovers, and cause considerable mortality to eggs and probably chicks, as well. Control measures are sometimes deemed necessary where Black-crowned Night-Herons threaten other endangered species

 

Despite this heron's success, many regional populations suffer from long-term declines. Pennsylvania's recent listing of this species as "endangered" cited ongoing habitat loss, perilous population levels, and abandonment of colonies. With over 56% of Pennsylvania's wetlands destroyed, its game commission cites habitat loss as a primary culprit and protects colonies at key locations like the Sheets Island Archipelago, now designated one of Audubon's Important Bird Area.

Join a nature walk with a local bird club or a state Audubon chapter. Look for Black-crowned Night-Herons in early fall, when the birds have dispersed and are easier to find along the edges of ponds, canals, and marshes.

 

Attend a festival where Black-crowned Night-Herons are often seen, such as California's Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival (Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend each year) , or the Sullys Hill Birding and Nature Festival (June 14-17, 2007) near Devil's Lake, North Dakota.

 

Go online to monitor state and federal designations of waterbirds as "endangered," "threatened," or "species of special concern." Most states provide listings and management plans for birds and critical wetlands. Visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission's site for one such example.

 

For more actions you can take, including Audubon activities, please visit our resources page.

Visit our resources page for more information about this species.

"Migratory Bird Mortality: Many Human Caused Threats Afflict Our Bird Populations."  Fact Sheet. U.S. Fish and Wildife Service, Division of Migratory Bird Management. January 2002.

 

Sauer, J. R., J. E. Hines, and J. Fallon. 2005. The North American Breeding Bird Survey, Results and Analysis 1966 - 2005. Version 6.2.2006. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD.