The Green Heron is one of my favorite shorebirds. I saw my first one a few years ago. They seem to blend into their environment often looking a dark dusty blue-gray. Up close or through a camera lens, they are a very colorful bright velvet-green bird with a brownish body. They are quite beautiful.
Green Herons are often seen standing motionless on the water’s edge of ponds, marshes, rivers, and lakes. You can also find them in trees. They have a unique call. Their call is a sharp kyowk! or skyow!
Even though I have never seen a Green Heron use a tool, they are known as “one of the world’s few tool-using bird species. They create fishing lures with bread crusts, insects, earthworms, twigs, feathers, and other objects, dropping them on the surface of the water to entice small fish” (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Green_Heron/lifehistory).
Green Herons eat mainly small fish such as minnows, sunfish, catfish, pickerel, carp, perch, gobies, shad, silverside, eels, and goldfish. They also feed on insects, spiders, crustaceans, snails, amphibians, reptiles, and rodents.
Green Herons are still common, but their population suffered a gradual decline of over 1.5% per year from 1966 to 2014, resulting in a cumulative decline of 68%, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. They are apparently stable today.
More about Green Herons at http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/green-heron
Enjoy the photos of the Green Heron!
