All species › Pelicans, herons and ibises › Herons and bitterns › Green Heron
Green Heron | Butorides virescens
Groene reiger | Garcita verdosa
The Green Heron is the small, compact heron of mangroves, ponds and stream banks on almost every island. It hunts from a branch or root just above the water, neck withdrawn, then strikes at a small fish with lightning speed. In Cuba it is called aguaitacaimán. Some classifications lump it with Striated Heron Butorides striata as one species; this guide treats the two separately.
Voice
On take-off a loud, harsh skeow or kyowk; also soft, dry kuk-kuk-kuk calls, especially when alarmed.
Recording: Stanislas Wroza — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
40–48 cm, with short legs, a thick neck usually drawn in and a long, pointed dark bill with a paler lower mandible. Adults have a dark, greenish-black crown with a crest raised when excited, a chestnut neck with a white line down the centre of the throat and a dark blue-grey back with a green gloss. The wing coverts are narrowly edged pale. The legs are yellow to orange, brighter when breeding. Juveniles are browner, with dense brown and white streaks on the neck and breast and pale spots on the wing coverts. In flight the bird looks dark, with slow, deep wingbeats.
Confusion species
Striated Heron Butorides striata, the common species in Trinidad and Tobago, has a grey rather than chestnut neck; intermediates occur and cannot always be assigned. Young Black-crowned Night Herons Nycticorax nycticorax and Yellow-crowned Night Herons Nyctanassa violacea are larger and grey-brown with white spots on the wings, a thicker bill and longer legs. Little Blue Heron Egretta caerulea is slimmer and long-necked, with a uniformly dark neck.
Habitat
Mangroves, the edges of ponds, canals, rivers and streams, freshwater marshes and swamp forest, rice fields and fish ponds; also small pools in town parks and hotel grounds and sheltered rocky shores. It usually hunts alone, standing or perched low at the water's edge, taking small fish, frogs, crabs and insects. There are records of Green Herons placing bait, such as a breadcrumb or feather, on the water to attract fish. It nests singly or in small groups; the nest is a thin platform of twigs in a tree or bush, often over or near water.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Resident in the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the islands of the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands and San Andrés. In Trinidad and Tobago it is seen mainly in the northern winter; the breeding bird there is Striated Heron. Migrants from North America add to the numbers in winter, especially in the north of the region. Outside the region it breeds from southern Canada and the eastern and western United States through Mexico to Panama.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Best looked for along mangrove edges and vegetated ponds, where the bird perches low on a branch or root over the water. Approached quietly it often stays motionless for a long time; the harsh call on take-off frequently gives it away before it is seen. Grey-necked birds in Trinidad and Tobago are Striated Herons.
Conservation status
Not threatened. The species also uses man-made waters such as reservoirs, sewage ponds and golf-course ponds. Habitat is lost locally through mangrove clearance and the filling of wetlands.
Scientific name
Butorides virescens | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Ardea virescens; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Butorides was introduced in 1852 by Blyth. Butorides combines Butor, the genus Thomas Forster introduced for the bitterns in 1827, with Ancient Greek -oides 'resembling'. virescens is Latin for 'greenish', after the green gloss on the crown and back. The specimen the first description was based on came from the coast of South Carolina.