Types › Types of Herons

Types of Herons

Herons are the long-legged statues of the water’s edge, standing motionless until a fish drifts too close, then striking like a loosed spring. The group runs from the four-foot Great Blue to the crow-sized Green Heron and the night-herons that hunt after dark. Here are the herons in the Huck field guide.

8 herons in the Huck field guide. Tap any one for identification, habitat, diet, and a live sightings map.

Black-crowned Night-Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Nycticorax nycticorax
Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias
Green Heron
Green Heron
Butorides virescens
Little Blue Heron
Little Blue Heron
Egretta caerulea
Tricolored Heron
Tricolored Heron
Egretta tricolor
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
Nyctanassa violacea
Bare-throated Tiger-Heron
Bare-throated Tiger-Heron
Tigrisoma mexicanum
Boat-billed Heron
Boat-billed Heron
Cochlearius cochlearius

Not sure which heron you found?

Point Huck at it. One photo identifies it on the spot, and adds it to your collection.

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Common questions

What is the difference between a heron and an egret?

Not much: egrets are simply herons that are usually white and grow showy plumes in the breeding season. They are in the same family and behave the same way. "Egret" is a naming tradition, not a separate group.

Is that big gray bird a crane or a heron?

Almost always a Great Blue Heron, which flies with its neck folded into an S. Cranes fly with the neck stretched straight out and travel in flocks. A lone gray wader hunched at a pond is a heron.

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