The Tricolored Heron is built for marsh life: long legs enable it to wade and see down through the water; long toes churn up food and distribute weight over soft mud; a long neck and bill help reach prey; and broad wings can lift the heavy body vertically out of a brushy wetland. Once called the "Louisiana Heron," this colonial nester is a close relative of bitterns and one of only four North American egret species.

In North America, most Tricolored Herons breed coastally from New Jersey through Florida and then west and south along the Gulf Coast. A few breed into New England and the coastal plain. Populations concentrate around places like Florida's Cape Canaveral, Louisiana's Sabine River estuary, and Texas's mid-coast bays. The Tricolored Heron's winter range covers much of this same area, with most birds withdrawing below North Carolina. Tricolored Herons also breed and winter coastally from Mexico south to Peru and northern Brazil.

 

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

In North America, Tricolored Heron populations appear stable, but have fluctuated significantly since the 1930s. Overall, Florida's breeding population dropped from an estimated 500,000 to 16,000 between the 1930s and the 1980s. Since the early 1990s, Breeding Bird Surveys and Christmas Bird Counts have recorded several population spikes connected to range expansion along the mid-Atlantic coast as far north as Massachusetts and at scattered sites along the Gulf Coast. Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia list this wader as of "a species of conservation concern." It is a "priority species" in Maine, and a "species of greatest conservation need" in Maryland and New York.

The state of Louisiana's coastal wetlands is particularly dire, since this state accounted for 67% of total U.S. coastal wetland losses between 1978 and 1990, and as much as 90% from 1990 to 2000. Despite legal efforts like the Breaux Acts, restoration has proven politically and economically difficult. Changes in river channels for navigation, increased silting from the Mississippi, and ground subsidence caused by the removal of oil and gas submerge as many as 47 square miles of marine wetlands per year. This degraded ecosystem is vulnerable to catastrophic events, like hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which submerged an estimated 217 square miles of wetlands in 2005. Before 2005, Tricolored Herons were already declining in large parts of Louisiana at a rate of more than 1.5% per year. Similar patterns have been observed in Florida's Everglades, where some restoration efforts are underway, and along coastal Texas, where no state law protects wetlands.

 

Tricolored Herons are additionally impacted by subsistence hunting in South America and increases in permits to kill herons at U.S. marine farms—a four-fold increase between 1989 and 1996. Nevertheless, aquaculture overall probably benefits this egret by providing food.  Human-created habitats like dredge islands also benefit Tricolored Herons.

Look for Tricolored Herons at coastal refuges like Huntington Beach State Park in Murrell's Inlets, South Carolina. For an adventurous experience, visit the remote Lacassine National Wildlife Refuge, an Important Bird Area, and part of Louisiana's disappearing coastal wetlands near Port Arthur.

 

Attend a wildlife festival where Tricolored Herons can be seen: Georgia's Colonial Coast Bird and Nature Festival, on Jekyll Island, Georgia; or the Pelican Island Wildlife Festival  outside Sebastian, Florida, the site of the first federal reservation for birds.

 

Respect Tricolored Herons with an 80-meter buffer between yourself and their nesting/roosting sites.

 

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

Visit our resources page for more information about this species.

Dahl, T. E. 1990. Wetlands: Losses in the United States 1780s to 1980s. U. S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service. Washington, D. C. 13 pages.

 

Frederick, P. C. 1997. Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor). In The Birds of North America, No. 306 (A. Poole and F. Gill, Eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.

 

Moulton, D. W., T. E. Dahl, and D. M. Dall. 1997. Texas Coastal Wetlands; Status and Trends, mid-1950s to early 1990s. U. S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, Southwestern Region. Albuquerque, New Mexico. 32 pages.

 

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.

 

Sibley, David Allen. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 2000.