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Black-crowned night herons typically nest together, for safety, in groups called colonies. They will abandon nests and sometimes entire colonies if they sense a threat to themselves or their young ones. When an entire colony is deserted, it is called colony abandonment.
Colonies may contain only black-crowned night herons, or sometimes, they share the colony with other birds like egrets or ibises. Some colony sites have lasted fifty years or more!
No studies have been conducted to determine if night herons leave their colony Christmas lights up all year long.
When you look, you see.
Are you interested in seeing a black-crowned night heron colony or rookery? You are definitely in luck because black-crowned night herons are one of the most common herons in the world. They can be found on islands in New York Harbor, marshes along the coastline, small lakes, rivers, and lagoons, and often in bird sanctuaries or zoos. For example, all of the black-crowned night heron photos on this page are pictures I took at the Lowcountry Zoo at Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. Black-crowned night herons are just about everywhere, even in the trees on busy city streets!
What?? Yes, in one really cool example, a group of third-graders in Oakland, California led a successful effort to have the black-crowned night heron named as the official city bird for Oakland. The students came up with the idea after hearing about baby birds falling out of nests made in the ficus trees on some downtown streets, and they wanted to come up with a way to raise awareness and help the birds out. You can read more about that cool project here at Audubon.org.
Have a hankering to learn more about heron habitats?
Below are a few links that I think you might enjoy!
Kids, remember to ask a parent, teacher, or librarian for help whenever you are looking for books or using the Internet. I always try to make sure to share kid-friendly books and resources, but websites are changing all the time, so always check with an adult first.
- The Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed the Celebrate Urban Birds project to help people learn about birds no matter where they live, including city environments. You can search information about some of the birds you can learn about near you (including black-crowned night herons) using their search tool here. You can also use your new knowledge and contribute your bird watching data to their citizen science project!
- Listen to some of the sounds you might hear around a black-crowned night heron rookery on the All About Birds site from Cornell University.
- The only known black-crowned night heron colony in Washington, D.C. is at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, but the birds aren’t one of the exhibits! About 100 breeding pairs of black-crowned night herons migrate to the zoo every spring, and they have been nesting there long before the zoo was established in 1889. Learn more about these awesome birds on the Smithsonian’s National Zoo website.