Bird Watching or Twitching in Andalucia Southern Spain
February 2007, Night Heron - Nycticorax nycticorax
The night heron is easy to identify with its stocky body and soft grey colour with a velvety black crown and mantle. It is a very sociable bird and it is not unusual to see twenty or more all roosting in the same tree during the day and flying in company, in a single line, to their feeding grounds at dusk. They roost in trees and bushes alongside waterways or lakes where there is plenty of cover. Normally the European night herons spends the winter in North Africa but, whether it is warmer now than in previous years, there is a large colony in the Doņana over wintering. This is good news because, as spring approaches the white head plumes appear and the legs turn a raspberry red, two features normally missed by twitchers here.