Black-crowned Night Heron

Nycticorax nycticorax

Other Names

  Night-Heron, Black-capped Night Heron   Bihoreau gris   Nachtreiher   Martinete Común   Natthäger   Kwak   Nitticora, Nitticora comune

World: Falkland Islands; Americas from southern Canada south to Tierra del Fuego; central and southern Europe East to Japan and South to South Africa

Kenya: Locally common in the southern half of the country; absent from the North except around Lake Turkana.

Often solitary but sometimes found in small groups, this isn't the easiest of herons to find although it's not particularly uncommon in Kenya. We've seen it several times in Samburu/Buffalo Springs, lurking in the undergrowth under the banks of the Isiolo or Uaso Nyiro rivers and occasionally late in the evening flying down the Uaso Nyiro, looking quite owl-like. It's also a fairly regular visitor to Lake Baringo where it sometimes breeds. There too, it seems to prefer lurking in the undergrowth at the water's edge. The one pictured above was unusually obliging and sat perched in a tree at Lake Baringo. Although it prefers to live near permanent water, it doesn't restrict itself to eating fish - frogs, bats, reptiles, insects, chicks and eggs of other birds are all quite acceptable and it will occasionally take prey on the wing as well as from the water or undergrowth.