This Yellow-crowned night heron is a gorgeous graceful bird, they are more solitary than the Black-crowned night heron and often more secretive, this species is quite common in some parts of the southeast, especially in coastal regions. It often feeds during the day as well as at night. Its stout bill is probably an adaptation for eating hard-shelled crustaceans. In some areas it is called “crab-eater”.
We had to wait an hour to take this amazing shot 🙂
One of the parents is always at the nest and is visible on the left. One of the chicks is on the branch near the parent while its four other sibling chicks are still in the nest. There are five chicks, total. The parents have been very attentive and small piles of regurgitated, reddish crayfish have been visible on the nest, where the parents have regurgitated food for the chicks.
Two of the Yellow-crowned Night-heron juveniles are peering over the edge of the nest, curious to see who was wading around in the water below them.
Yellow-crowned Night-heron nest in the swamp with adults attending chicks. There are at least two, most likely more, chicks in the nest and the adults are taking good care of them and feeding them a lot of crayfish.
Typical sloppy YCNH twig nest near the top of a Slash Pine in a city park – at least 1 chick visible.