While we were in Orange, I kept seeing this fellow standing in a ditch by the road hunting crawfish. Finally, I stopped to take a picture so I could ID him. He’s a yellow-crowned night heron.
I love the name night heron. It’s such an evocative name, one that fires the imagination. Not quite as good as the Latin version of the black-crowned night heron (nycticorax nycticorax), which translates to night raven, though.
The picture here doesn’t really do him justice as his crown appears more white than the pale yellow it should be. Blame the photographer. The bird himself was living up to his name, which he claimed was actually Moe.
I also added another bird to my life list: the fish crow. I heard what sounded like a nasal quawking, but the birds flying over looked like crows, but the sound was definitely not the hard caw-caw. I listened to some recordings online and consulted many a tome to learn that I had seen fish crows, a fairly common coastal bird.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
From the heading I was prepared to believe that you’d seen this heron in Austin – it’s a good photo, wherever he lives.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
You’ll see him and his buddies in Orange. There was a picture in the Statesman, though, of one at Barton Springs a few months ago.