Hi, I am a Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. You can find me in most parts of America and I will migrate depending on the temperature. The females and males are quite alike, but our juveniles are brown with flecks of white and gray. I am a medium sized, stocky bird, with a short neck and legs. As my name implies, I am most active at dusk, dawn, and during the night. I inhabit swamps ponds, lakes, rivers, mudflats, lagoons, rocky coasts, beaches, marshes, slow moving wooded streams, and forested wetlands. I am easily spotted in the southeastern United States, and through most of Northern South America, and Central America.
I love to winter along the Gulf coasts, southward and Atlantic coasts. As an adult my height is 24 inches. My wingspan is 44 inches, and I weigh about two pounds. I love to eat fish, snakes, snails and aquatic creatures, insects, and crayfish is my favorite, of the aquatic invertebrates. The female can lay 4 to 8 eggs, and both the female and male incubate them for about three weeks. We both feed our chicks by regurgitating food and in about 4 to 5 weeks our chicks will begin flying and you will see them perched on branches. The chicks will stay near the nest to roost and be fed by the parents. You can hear me making a KYOWK or KWEHK and also another sound QUAWK.
If you are visiting in any of the areas where I live, look for me perched on a branch or walking in the marshland and I may even make some sounds for you.
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