Common Night Heron.
Ardea nycticorax Linnæus, Syst. Nat. ed. 10 (1758), 1, 142.
Nycticorax nycticorax Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. (1898), 26,
146; Hand-List (1899), 1, 198; Oates, Cat. Birds' Eggs (1902),
2, 123; McGregor and Worcester, Hand-List (1906), 33.
Nycticorax griseus Blanford, Fauna Brit. Ind. Bds. (1898), 4,
397, fig. 96.
Calayan (McGregor); Luzon (Meyen, Steere Exp., McGregor); Mindanao
(Everett). Africa, central and southern Europe to Indian Peninsula,
Malay Peninsula, China and Japan; Greater Sunda Islands to Celebes.
"Adult male in breeding plumage.--Black above, glossed with dark
green, and with a slight shade of slaty gray on the mantle; upper
scapulars like the back, lower ones light ashy gray; wings entirely
light ashy gray or dove-color, with a slight shade of dull oily green
on secondaries; lower back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and tail clear
gray or dove-color; head crested, black, and with a dark green gloss,
and having two long white nuchal plumes; base of forehead white,
extending above eye to behind the latter; feathers below the eye,
cheeks, throat, and under parts pure white; ear-coverts and sides
of neck delicate isabelline gray, extending in a collar round hind
neck, and to sides of body; thighs and under tail-coverts white;
under wing-coverts and axillars very pale ashy. Length, about 457;
culmen, 76; wing, 267; tail, 102; tarsus, 71.
"Adult female in breeding plumage.--Similar to the male in color and
having the same long white plumes on the nape. Upper mandible slaty
black with a whitish streak near the edges, central portion of lower
mandible flesh-color, greenish towards base; skin round the eye pale
green; tarsi and feet pale yellow; iris crimson." (T. Ayres.)
"Adults in winter plumage.--Similar to the breeding plumage, but much
greener on head and back, and not having the drooping white plumes
on the nape.
"Young.--Brown above, varied with longitudinal triangular centers of
rufous or buff to the feathers of back and wing-coverts; quills and
tail-feathers tipped with white; head blackish, crest-feathers centered
with rufous; sides of face and under surface of body fulvescent,
streaked with dusky black, with which the feathers are margined;
thighs, under wing-coverts, and axillars streaked like the sides of
body; throat whitish.
"The full-grown young bird is similarly marked to the nestling
described, but all the streaks and spots are much paler, the
throat and under surface of the body being white, with a few dusky
streaks. Judging from a specimen in the Tweeddale Collection from
Canton, the adult plumage is assumed during the next breeding season,
and even the white nape-plumes are put on, but the coloring of the
head and back is not so bright as in older birds." (Sharpe.)
The common night heron in abundant in parts of Luzon but is not so
widely distributed in the smaller islands as is the next species.