The Black-crowned Night-Heron is a medium-sized bird whose natural habitat may be in fresh or saltwater wetlands. They populate areas around the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. This species nests in colonies atop platforms of sticks in wooded areas, or on the ground on island locations. Those that live outside of the tropics migrate south in winter months. Black-crowned Night-Herons that live in North America typically fly to Mexico, the southern United States, Central America, and the West Indies in cold weather. They eat a diet of fish, crustaceans, frogs and small mammals, and their current conservation status is Least Concern.
Black-crowned Night-Heron: Medium-sized, stocky heron with short neck and legs, black upperparts, gray wings, and white to pale gray underparts. Stout black bill, red eyes, and yellow legs. Feeds on small invertebrates, crustaceans, vertebrates, mammals, eggs and young of other birds, and plants.
Black-crowned Night-Heron: Breeds throughout the U.S. (except Rocky Mountain region) to southern South America. Spends winters in southern half of U.S. Preferred habitats include swamps, streams, rivers, marshes, mud flats, and the edges of lakes that have become overgrown with rushes and cattails.
"woe", "quock", "quaik"
Gary Owen Dick
Santiago Cornejo
The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..
Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.
The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) was established in the mid-1990�s as a cooperative project among several federal agencies to improve and expand upon taxonomic data (known as the NODC Taxonomic Code) maintained by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
To find the ITIS page for a bird species go to the ITIS web site advanced search and report page at http://www.itis.gov/advanced_search.html. You can enter the TSN or the common name of the bird. It will return the ITIS page for that bird. Another way to obtain the ITIS page is to use the Google search engine. Enter the string ITIS followed by the taxonomic ID, for example "ITIS 178041" will return the page for the Allen's Hummingbird.