Nycticorax nycticorax
Order Pelecaniformes
Family Ardeidae
Subfamily Ardeinae
Adult.— Crown and back black; wings and tail gray; forehead and under parts white.
Immature.— Upper parts, wings, and tail brown, streaked and dotted with white; under parts lighter, streaked with brown and white.
Nest, in trees.
Eggs, pale bluish-green.
The Night Heron is a summer resident of New York and New England, common along the coast, but rare or absent in the interior; it occasionally winters in southern New England. It breeds in communities which occasionally number many hundred individuals. In feeds chiefly in shallow, tidal creeks; even if it breeds at some distance inland, it often flies at dusk to the salt marshes or to the beach. Its hoarse quok, almost like the bark of a dog, is therefore a very familiar sound along the coast. In the daytime it roosts in trees; in late summer flocks gather which sometimes reach into the hundreds. Though it feeds chiefly after dusk, yet it is occasionally seen in the daytime, either standing at the edge of small marshy pools or along the shore, or flapping heavily over the marshes.
Adults are easily identified by their white under parts, ash-gray wings and tail, and the black crown and upper back. The immature birds are brown, spotted with white or buffy. When seen flying at a distance it is difficult to identify them with certainty, until one becomes familiar with the characteristics of their flight, which is slow and heavy; the strokes are alternated with periods of sailing, during which the wings are curved slightly downward.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)