This album shows a pair of Yellow-crowned Night Herons and their chicks at Howard Park in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Scroll down for more information about these particular birds. To see more about Yellow-crowned Night Herons in general, click on YC Night Heron in the list at the right.
(We have included a few images that are not quite clear because they show some interesting features of the birds.)
Click on a thumbnail image to start the slide show.
Use the buttons to adjust the speed or to pause on a particular image.
Night Herons seem to like Fred Howard Park
Yellow-crowned Night Herons are often seen feeding at low tide at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs, Florida. They are reclusive birds that live mainly along the shore in the mangroves. In the spring of 2007, there was a small colony of Yellow-Crowned Night Herons nesting in the oak trees in the picnic area at the park. After that colony had moved on, in July 2007 we spotted an adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron sitting on a branch in a tall pine tree at the same park. It turned out that the bird was watching over a nest that held three chicks. Another adult was on a branch nearby. The young birds seemed to be about one week old when we first noticed them. They appeared to have hatched a few days apart. There was clearly a small one, a large one and a medium sized one.
The photos in the above album were taken from July 7 through August 18. During that time, the chicks changed drastically. They started out as yellow-bellied little balls of fuzz standing a few inches tall. Within six weeks they became brown-streaked, lanky youngsters nearly as big as the adults, but lacking the adult coloring. Some of the images are clearer than others due to the movement of the branch in the wind or the movement of the birds. We included some less than perfect images as well as the clear ones because they showed some interesting features of the birds.
The Howard Park Colony -
What we noticed about the Yellow-crowned Night Heron's habits
The Yellow-crowned Night Heron often nests in small trees along a shoreline, like in the mangroves in Florida. But sometimes it chooses a taller tree a little farther inland. In the spring of 2007, we were told by park personnel that there was a small colony of these birds nesting at Howard Park in Tarpon Springs. We watched about a dozen pairs in the oak trees at the park until they left at the beginning of the summer. This is what we observed.
The crown on the bird's head is white for most of the year. At breeding time the white streak turns yellow. It can be a bright lemon yellow, or a butterscotch yellow, or sometimes even a dull yellow with a smudge of brown on the forehead. At breeding time the bird also has thin white plumes at the back of the head. The interesting thing is that the legs turn color, too - a bright reddish or orange color.
The male bird is the materials gatherer when it comes time to build the nest. He entices the female by finding a branch that is shaped like a Y and demonstrating his skill at providing a home. He gathers two thin sticks and lays them parallel to each other, across the fork in the branch. Then he calls to the observing female with a few "whoops." She replies with some softer "whoops." If she chooses to join him on the branch, she becomes the nest builder while he remains the materials gatherer.
The male is particular about his materials. He does not pick up dry sticks from the ground. He flies to nearby trees and breaks off thin live branches that are flexible. He returns to the nesting branch and always approaches from the base of the branch, not the outer end. He passes the twig to the female, mouth to mouth, and she weaves it into their delicate, shallow, basket-like nest.
When the nest is big enough, the birds mate quickly - so quickly that if you sneeze, you might miss it. They remain close to or in the nest, periodically checking under the sitting female to see if any eggs are there. We noticed that there is often a third adult bird on a branch nearby. We are not sure if this third bird is a helper or if it is observing the actions of the other two to learn the nest building and child rearing process. It might be doing both.
When the female has produced eggs, the male and female take turns sitting on them. It is fascinating to see the two change places. The arriving bird always lands near the base of the branch and walks toward the nest. The bird sitting on the nest stands up and walks out onto one of the forks of the Y. The transition is usually fast and smooth. Before you know it, one bird is up and the other is sitting down. In their "off time" they either fly to shallow water to hunt food, or they rest on a nearby branch.
When watching the nests, it is difficult to determine when the eggs have hatched. (The nests in this colony were 15 to 25 feet above the ground.) Often the only clue is the empty pale blue shell that you find on the ground under the branch.
After the eggs hatch, the male brings additional materials to reinforce and enlarge the nest. He is still the materials gatherer, and the female is still the builder. They continue to take turns at the nest, feeding the young ones small crabs and other aquatic foods.
Like many baby birds, the tiny Yellow-crowned Night Herons that we saw initially looked like balls of fluff. A few days later, their fluff had started to change to spiky feathers that were streaked with brown, white and gray. Unfortunately, of the nesting colony, we never saw chicks that were more than a week old. This may have been due to the Cooper's Hawks and other predatory birds in the area. The Night Herons do not seem to have much defense against more aggressive animals.
At the end of May, the nesting pairs began to disappear from the colony. About three weeks into June, we saw the last of them leave and move on to the east. We assumed the Night Herons were done nesting for the season, but on July 7 we found a new empty shell on the ground about 200 feet from the colony site. We looked up to find an adult and three chicks in a nest on a pine branch. Those were the birds photographed for the slide show on this page.
The Single Nest at Howard Park:
From nest to water's edge in seven weeks
After the small colony of Yellow-crowned Night Herons had moved on, we found one isolated nest nearby about one week into July. We noticed it after spotting an empty shell on the ground. The young herons in this nest seemed to be about one week old, about the age at which the chicks in the colony's nests had disappeared. We were happy to see that some chicks had survived.
We believe the lone nest probably belonged to an experienced pair of Night Herons residing at Howard Park year round. It seemed possible that this pair was aware of the timing of the nesting of the nearby Cooper's Hawks and had adjusted their annual breeding time accordingly. Because this pair of Night Herons had nested later in the season, their chicks had hatched right around the time the hungry young Cooper's Hawks had moved north. Lucky for those little chicks.
It also was possible that this pair of Night Herons intentionally waited to nest until the springtime colony of Night Herons had moved away from the area, giving them less competition for the local supply of food. Whatever the reason, this pair was more successful in helping their chicks survive. Unfortunately, there was a dangerous aspect to the birds nesting at the end of June. It resulted in the young birds having to deal with Florida's intense heat and summer storms as soon as they hatched. Even so, it seemed that this adult pair's timing had been better than that of the birds in the colony of Night Herons. There is no way to know if their timing was accidental or intentional.
We believe the three eggs in the single nest must have hatched at the end of June or very early in July. One of the chicks, the smallest, did not survive. But the other two did well. We checked on them at least once a week and saw the adults watching over the chicks and bringing them food.
That was interesting to see. It seems that Yellow-crowned Night Herons do not carry food with their feet the way hawks do. Nor do they carry food in their bills like a Robin might. The Night Heron seems to swallow the crab or fish to a certain point in the throat and then flies back to the nest. It then "coughs it up" and deposits it in the nest for the young birds. Just the sight of the adult bird landing on a nearby branch was enough to send the young birds into meal-alert mode. The feathers on their heads stood on end, and they made a sound that was not a squeak or a chirp, but more of a buzzing or whirring noise.
One thing we noticed was that adult Night Herons do not seem to be as protective and attentive as some other birds such as Ospreys are. The adult Night Heron stays in the nest when the chicks are very young, but it does not seem to use its body to protect the chicks from the elements for a prolonged period of time. As soon as the chicks are able to move around in the nest, the adult moves to the edge and does not react much to the activities of the chicks. The adults are also mainly silent, unlike hawks and similar birds that often call to each other and to their young.
The adult Yellow-crowned Night Herons are good food providers though. The male and female take turns staying at the nest, and each usually brings food for the young when it is time for his or her shift. The changing of the guard is very similar to the procedure they use before the eggs hatch: The arriving adult lands in a nearby tree, then flies to the base of the nest branch. The adult at the nest moves farther out on the nest branch to allow room for the arriving bird. The arriving bird takes its place at the nest and the departing bird flies to a nearby branch. It seems very well coordinated.
Back to the solitary nest. On August 5, we did not see the adults at or near the nest, but the young ones still appeared to be well-fed. Unfortunately, their nest had started to shift and spread, probably due to heavy rain storms earlier in the week. The shifting of the nest allowed us to see something very interesting. At roughly five or six weeks of age, the two young birds demonstrated nest-building skills in an attempt to repair the nest. The larger one, which we believe was a male, was standing on the nest branch about 10" from the nest. The smaller one, which we believe was a female, was settled into a spot between the nest and the main branch. The larger young bird picked up a twig and passed it to the smaller bird, mouth to mouth. The smaller bird stood up and worked the twig into the edge of the nest. They did this more than once. Apparently, these birds learned quickly, or had very keen instincts.
By August 11, the older of the two had started its practice flights. Until that point we had never seen either bird any farther than a few feet out on the nest branch. But when we arrived to observe them that day, the slightly larger bird was in a tree about 30 feet from the nest. We saw it fly awkwardly about 20 feet to another tree. It seemed much better at using its wings than its landing gear. It had a little difficulty grasping the landing spot with its feet. Awhile later, it completed the triangle and flew back to the nesting branch where the other young bird stood watching and waiting.
On August 15, there was only one bird at the nest, the smaller one. She was perched alone on the nest branch. We could not see the other bird in any of the nearby trees so we went to search for him. We walked on the path that leads toward the shore of the Gulf of Mexico and found the larger young bird walking ahead of us on the path. He was about five hundred feet from the nest and was tagging along after an adult Little Blue Heron who seemed to be leading him toward the water.
Both of the birds took flight, the Yellow-crowned Night Heron following the Little Blue Heron. We caught up to them at the water's edge where they joined a group of adult White Ibises. The young Yellow-crowned Night Heron seemed unsure of himself. We believe it might have been his first exposure to the Gulf because he dipped his bill into the water and drank, but he did not seem to realize he was supposed to nose around in the wet sand for food.
This is a major difference between young Night Herons that hatch in trees away from the shoreline and those that hatch in nests situated low in the mangroves at the shore. The young mangrove-nest birds have the advantage of being low to the ground and close to the water. They are able to leave the nest early by walking, and they can observe their parents hunting for food. But the tree-nested young ones that we observed could not travel very far until they were able to fly. And when they were able to fly, they did not know how to get their own food. They had depended on the adults delivering food to the tree which was about a thousand feet from the shore, too far away for the young ones to observe the adults' hunting habits.
Even with that disadvantage, we were confident that the young Night Heron would catch on. We left him with the Little Blue and the Ibises, sure that he would copy their feeding habits and find his dinner. We estimated that the length of time from hatching to flying to the shoreline had been about seven weeks for that Yellow-crowned Night Heron.
Later that evening, we checked back on the remaining young Night Heron who was back in the nest. Since we estimated that she was probably just a few days younger than the larger one, we knew it was likely to be just a matter of days until she would fly to the shore to join her nest mate.
On the evening of August 16, we were surprised to see that the larger young bird had returned to join the smaller one at the nest. We had not seen him arrive, but we hoped he had brought her some food because we had not seen the adults at the nest in quite a while. At that point, both young birds were almost the size of an adult, but both still had brown backs with white markings. Their heads and breasts were still streaked with white and brown. The main changes we noticed were that their bills were becoming darker each time we saw them, although the smaller bird still had yellower facial skin than the larger bird. Their legs and feet were gradually turning a paler yellow than the bright yellow they had been when the birds were very young.
On the afternoon of August 18, we found the nest empty but saw the smaller bird in a nearby tree about 30 feet from the nest. She walked from branch to branch and then flew about 20 feet to another high branch, taking almost the identical route that the young male had taken when he had first learned to fly. An hour later, she was still perched on the same branch, but then she flew awkwardly to a bare pine branch about 10 feet from the nest. We did not see any sign of the young male that evening.
On August 20, the nest was empty. The summer rains and wind had caused it to spread and slide on its supporting branches. The two young Yellow-crowned Night Herons were gone, but we will watch for them at the shore to see if they have joined the adults near the mangroves. And we will check that tree again in the spring to see if any of the birds return.
All photos on this website by J.A. Heintz
All written material by D.C. Heintz
Copyright 2010 D.C. Heintz. All rights reserved.
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