Bird Watching Curaçao – HOME

REPOSTED from our sister-website: https://caribbeanfootprint.com/young-and-adult-yellow-crowned-night-heron/

All wildlife has many life phases. Some start as a tiny egg incubated outside (and sometimes insides) a mothers body, and in the case of Seahorses in a pouch of the fathers body. Others are born from the womb of their mother. And others are born from a separated piece of an adult life stage. This series puts the spotlight on a variety of species of wildlife on our islands with photos of the young or immature life stage together with the adult stage.

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron (Nyctanassa violacea) is one of 2 species of night herons living and breeding on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. And it is the most common one as well. They can be found along salt water and fresh water areas as well as in gardens as their food consists of crabs, fish, crustaceans, insects, and lizards. Besides the Yellow-crowned night heron the second species of night heron that  can be found on these islands is the Black-crowned Night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax). As adults these two species are fairly easy to distinguish, as juveniles it is almost impossible to the untrained eye.

Often juvenile birds look nothing like their parents. The juvenile of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron is no exception. Of course it is a good thing to have a colour which is less conspicuous, as the young birds can blend into the vegetation and be well camouflaged against predators. A good tip to distinguish the two species as juveniles is to look at their bills. When the bill is black it is almost 99% sure that you are looking at the Yellow-crowned Night Heron.

These birds usually look for food just before sunrise and just after sunset but can be seen during the day in darker mangrove bushes or along shadowed cliffs of beaches. You will often see birds standing on one leg. This is apparently to limit heat loss as even a minimal drop in environmental temperature, e.g. during the night, can enable the loss of warmth through the legs.

English name: Yellow-crowned Night Heron
Papiamentu name: Krabèchi korona hel
Scientific name: Nyctanassa violacea
Family: Ardeidae (Herons)
Occurrence (ABC islands): Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba

Publications used:

• Boer, B. de, Newton, E. & Restall, R. 2012. Birds of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire. Ardea Christopher Helm, London.
• Pors-da Costa Gomez, M., Pors, L. 2021. Vogels van Curaçao. Book.
• Prins, T.G., Reuter, J.H., Debrot, A.O., Wattel, J. & Nijman, V. 2009. Checklist of the birds of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire, South Caribbean. Ardea 97: 137-268.
• Wells, J.V. & Wells, A.C. 2017. Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: a site and field guide. 474pp. Cornell University Press.