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Malagasy Pond Heron | Ardeola idae
Madagaskarralreiger | Garcilla Malgache
The Malagasy Pond Heron breeds on Madagascar and a few surrounding islands and spends the austral winter on the African mainland. In the region it is a scarce dry-season visitor that is often overlooked among Squacco Herons.
Voice
Almost silent in the wintering range. On take-off sometimes a hoarse, low kraak, lower than that of the Squacco Heron.
No recording with a suitable Creative Commons licence is available for this species yet.
Identification
About 47 cm, noticeably larger and heavier than the Squacco Heron, with a thicker bill and a sturdier neck. In the plumage seen in the region the head, neck and breast are pale buff with broad, dark blackish-brown streaks, and the back is dark brown; the wings, rump and tail are white. The bill is greenish to yellowish with a dark tip and dark upper mandible, and the legs greenish-yellow. In breeding plumage, which birds may show shortly before departure, the entire plumage is pure white, with an azure-blue bill with a black tip and pinkish-red legs. The sexes are alike.
Confusion species
Squacco Heron Ardeola ralloides is smaller and slimmer, warmer ochre-buff in colour with finer streaking on the head and neck, and a slimmer bill. Western Cattle Egret Ardea ibis is all white at rest, with a short yellow bill; white Malagasy Pond Herons in breeding plumage differ in the blue bill. Striated Heron Butorides striata shows dark wings in flight.
Habitat
The margins of rivers, dams, marshes and lagoons with floating vegetation and dense fringing cover, as well as shaded riverbanks in forest and small pools. It is solitary and hunts standing or creeping for frogs, fish, small crabs and insects. It breeds only on Madagascar, Aldabra and Mayotte.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
A scarce but regular non-breeding visitor to Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, especially the middle Zambezi and Lake Malawi; rare in northern Botswana and north-eastern South Africa (Kruger National Park and Limpopo) and a vagrant further south. Beyond the region it winters in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and eastern DR Congo.
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Search in the dry season, especially from June to September, along shaded riverbanks and pools in the Zambezi Valley, the Luangwa Valley and around Lake Malawi. Check every ‘Squacco’ sitting alone in a sheltered corner: size, the heavy bill and the dark, coarse streaks on neck and breast are decisive.
Conservation status
Endangered according to the IUCN. The population on Madagascar is declining because of the conversion of marshes to rice fields, egg collecting at colonies and competition with the Squacco Heron. As a result the species has also become scarcer in its wintering range.
Scientific name
Ardeola idae | (Hartlaub, 1860)
Hartlaub described the species in 1860 as Ardea Idae; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Ardeola was introduced in 1822 by Boie. Ardeola is Latin, a diminutive of ardea 'heron', so 'little heron'. idae honours the Austrian traveller and collector Ida Laura Pfeiffer (1797–1858), who visited Madagascar in 1857. The specimen the first description was based on came from east coast of Madagascar.