Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron - Nyctanassa violacea, also called the American Night Heron or squawk, similar in appearance to the Black-crowned Night Heron. It is found throughout a large part of the Americas, especially (but not exclusively) in warmer coastal regions.

Stalking prey along the edge of a Red Mangrove area at Ding Darling NWR. 

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron is a short, stocky wading bird about 24 inches in length with a wingspan of a little under four feet. It has long yellow to orange legs, red eyes, a black bill, and a short neck. It has a slate gray body, a black head with a white streak on the side of its face and a yellowish-white crown. In breeding season it has a yellow plume of feathers on its head. Males and females look alike. Immature yellow-crowned night herons are a mottled grayish-brown.

Portrait shot of an immature bird that has not yet molted to adult plummage.

The yellow-crowned Night Heron forages for food both in the day and at night. Most of the ellow-crowned Night Heron's diet is made up of crustaceans like crabs and crayfish. It sometimes eats fish, eels, mussels, frogs, tadpoles, aquatic insects, snails, and small snakes. It either stands and waits for its prey to swim by or wades in the shallow water and slowly stalks its prey.

Stalking prey in the shallow waters of Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel FL.

The Yellow-crowned Night Heron lives in wooded swamps, fresh and saltwater marshes and thickets. The Yellow-crowned Night Heron breeds from southern New England south to Florida and west to Texas. It also breeds along the Mississippi River. It winters on the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts.

                                  

Soaking up some sun, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Naples FL.

The female lays three to five eggs on a nest of sticks placed in a tree or sometimes on the ground. Both the male and female build the nest and incubate the eggs. The eggs hatch in about three weeks. Both parents care for the chicks and feed them regurgitated food. The chicks fledge when they are about 25 days  old.                                                       

Portrait shot hand held with a 500mm Canon lens.

The yellow-crowned night heron is more solitary than other herons. It prefers to nest separately from other birds.

Having some crab for dinner. Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel FL.

Although I have photographed all the birds shown here in Florida, I do see them at our local nature preserve, and along the Mississippi River. Like many birds in this area, they are more skittish of humans and will fly if you try to get close. In the South Florida areas I visit there numbers are much higher, and they are much more tolerant of humans. I have made many good shots with a 70-200mm lens and 1.4 extender attached. 

The Food Chain

As a nature and wildlife photographer I spend countless hours outside photographing and studying nature. Besides knowing all the technical stuff to make your camera work and give you a proper exposure, knowing your subject's behavior is extremely important. This allows you to know when something is going to happen that will make for a much more dramatic shot. When you first start photographing wildlife, you are happy to just get a nice exposure with sharp detail on your subject while it is in a static pose. Soon that is not good enough and you want some dramatic action. This is where knowing the animals behavior will allow you to anticipate the shot and capture some great action. The great thing about digital is you can take as many photos as possible and just delete what you do not need. In the films days this was a very expensive endeavor to make so many exposures to just get one or two of the peak action captures.

I have been fortunate to witness some amazing scenes while spending all those hours in the field. What has always fascinated me is the cycle of life, and where everything fits on the food chain. In fact one of my favorite quotes is "I am glad I am very high up on the food chain" My first foray into the food chain started in high school when I learned to scuba dive. Making my first dive in the ocean made it crystal clear that I was nowhere near the top of the food chain, and once I entered the water there were many things way bigger than me that could eat me.

My next sense of where I fit in on the food chain was backpacking in the back country of Yellowstone National Park and being in Grizzly Bear country. No bear spray back then. You wore a couple cow bells and talked out loud so they could hear you coming.

A good reminder of my place on the food chain occurred when I captured this 9-10 foot alligator chomping on a Horseshoe Crab. I had been squatting down at the water's edge in Ding Darling NWR to photograph some birds close by. Suddenly he came to the surface about 25-30 feet in front of me and started chomping away. Being the good photographer, I didn't flinch and kept shooting until my buffer was full and then shot some more. The gator finally spit out the crab and slid below the surface. I was eagerly checking my camera to see if I got any good shots. Suddenly several of those National Geographic shows popped into my head and started playing back. You know, the ones where the gators charge out of the water and grab the unsuspecting animal at the edge that was there to drink. They drag them under and start the death roll while ripping them apart. At that point I was back pedaling and got back up on the road ASAP.

It is not always pretty, and in reality it is often gory and bloody when you watch all creatures struggle to survive and pass along their genes to the next generation. But it is fascinating to see how they overcome much adversity to survive and thrive. But one mistake, or lax moment, can make them just another link on the food chain for a creature that is higher than them. I have come uncomfortably close a few times to being a link on that chain, but hopefully I will be around to document some of the action for a while longer.

Scott