Butorides virescens
Order Pelecaniformes
Family Ardeidae
Subfamily Ardeinae
Adult.— Top of head glossy greenish-black; wings, back, and tail greenish; the longer wing-feathers with a bluish tinge; sides of throat and neck chestnut; a narrow strip of black and white down the middle of the neck; under parts brownish-gray.
Immature.— Similar, but under parts white, streaked with brown.
Nest, of twigs, in trees.
Eggs, pale green.
The Green Heron is a common summer resident of New York and New England, arriving late in April or early in May, and staying till October. It feeds in the marshy coves of rivers or ponds, or at the edges of swamps.
When startled it rises with a harsh quak, and after the legs have been picked up, and a tuck taken in the long neck, the broad wings take the bird off over the tree-tops or around a protecting bend of the shore. When in the air, it looks about the size of a crow, but flies with slower, heavier strokes and shows a shorter tail. When the bird lights, it is very apt to raise its head-feathers somewhat, giving its head a peculiar bushy appearance. Inland and south of Vermont and New Hampshire it is, in the summer, almost the only heron to be seen. As the train runs along a shallow river, like the Connecticut, individuals may be observed almost every mile, flying or standing.
The greenish or bluish-green color of the wings and its smaller size should distinguish it from the Night Heron. The green shows only as an iridescent color on the wings; the quill-feathers, and in old birds the back also, are bluish, so that many an amateur catching this color has jumped to the conclusion that he has seen the Little Blue Heron of the South. There is no danger of confusing the Green Heron with the Great Blue Heron, a bird that seems to the excited eye as tall as a man and as broad-winged as an eagle. The Bittern, the only other heron-like bird to be kept in mind, stiffens, when standing, into a vertical position, the bill pointing almost directly upward, and the black and ochre stripes showing clearly on the neck. The Bittern on the wing looks brown, and is much larger than a crow.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)