Striated Heron
Butorides striata
Summary 2
The Striated Heron (Butorides striata) also known as Mangrove Heron, Little Heron or Green-backed Heron, is a small heron. Striated Herons are mostly non-migratory and noted for some interesting behavioral traits. Their breeding habitat is small wetlands in the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia, and in South America. Vagrants have been recorded on oceanic islands, such as Chuuk and Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marianas and Palau.
An adult bird was once observed in a peculiar and mysterious behavior: while on the nest, it would grab a stick in its bill and make a rapid back-and-forth motion with the head, like a sewing machine's needle. The significance of this behavior is completely unknown: While such movements occur in many other nesting birds where they seem to compact the nest, move the eggs, or dislodge parasites, neither seems to have been the case in this particular Striated Heron.
ssp. carcinophilus, Busuanga. 3
Sources and Credits
- (c) Carmelo López Abad, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Carmelo López Abad
- Adapted by Carmelo López Abad from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butorides_striata
- (c) Carmelo López Abad, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
