The striated heron (''Butorides striata'') also known as mangrove heron, little green heron or

green-backed heron "Green-backed heron" is a collective term for certain herons. Small and compact among herons, these birds often feature green plumage – rare among the Ardeidae –, in particular on the back, wings and scapulars. They were formerly beli ...

, is a small

heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychus ...

, about 44 cm tall. Striated herons are mostly

sedentary Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like soci ...

and noted for some interesting behavioral traits. Their breeding habitat is small wetlands in the

Old World The "Old World" is a term for Afro-Eurasia that originated in Europe , after Europeans became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which were previously thought of by the ...

tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia, and in South America and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. Vagrants have been recorded on Oceanic islands, such as Chuuk and

Yap Yap ( yap, Waqaab) traditionally refers to an island group located in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, a part of Yap State. The name "Yap" in recent years has come to also refer to the state within the Federated States of Micro ...

in the Federated States of Micronesia, the

Marianas The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

and Palau; the bird recorded on Yap on February 25, 1991, was from a continental Asian rather than from a

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...

n population, while the origin of the bird seen on Palau on May 3, 2005 was not clear. This bird was long considered to be

conspecific Biological specificity is the tendency of a characteristic such as a behavior or a biochemical variation to occur in a particular species. Biochemist Linus Pauling stated that "Biological specificity is the set of characteristics of living organ ...

with the closely related North American species, the

green heron The green heron (''Butorides virescens'') is a small heron of North and Central America. ''Butorides'' is from Middle English ''butor'' "bittern" and Ancient Greek ''-oides'', "resembling", and ''virescens'' is Latin for "greenish". It was long c ...

, which is now usually separated as ''B. virescens'', as well as the

lava heron The lava heron (''Butorides sundevalli''), also known as the Galápagos heron, is a species of heron endemic to the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador. It is considered by some authorities — including the American Ornithological Society and BirdLife ...

of the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

(now ''B. sundevalli'', but often included in ''B. striata'', e.g. by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

BLI (2008)); collectively they were called "

s".

Description and ecology

Butorides striata Orto botanico di Pamplemousses Mauritius 0069

Adults have a blue-grey back and wings, white underparts, a black cap, a dark line extends from the bill to under the eye and short yellow legs. Juveniles are browner above and streaked below. These birds stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey, but are easier to see than many small heron species. They mainly eat small fish, frogs and aquatic insects. They sometimes use bait, dropping a feather or leaf carefully on the water surface and picking fish that come to investigate.Norris (1975), Boswall (1983), Walsh ''et al.'' (1985), Robinson (1994) They nest in a platform of sticks measuring between 20–40 cm long and 0.5–5 mm thick. The entire nest measures some 40–50 cm wide and 8–10 cm high outside, with an inner depression 20 cm wide and 4–5 cm deep. It is usually built in not too high off the ground in shrubs or trees but sometimes in sheltered locations on the ground, and often near water. The

clutch A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages power transmission, especially from a drive shaft to a driven shaft. In the simplest application, clutches connect and disconnect two rotating shafts (drive shafts or line shafts). ...

is 2–5

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s, which are pale blue and measure around 36 by 28 mm.Greeney & Merino M. (2006) 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

parasite Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has ...

s, neither seems to have been the case in this particular striated heron. Young birds will give a display when they feel threatened, by stretching out their necks and pointing the bill skywards. How far this would deter

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

s is not known. Widespread and generally common, the striated heron is classified as a species of

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

; this holds true whether the

is included in ''B. striata'' or not. Butorides striatus - Daintree River.jpg, On the

Daintree River The Daintree River is a river that rises in the Daintree Rainforest near Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland, Australia. The river is located about northwest of Cairns in the UNESCO World Heritagelisted Wet Tropics of Queensland. The area ...

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its tropical northern part has been ...

Green-backed heron (Butorides striata atricapilla) juvenile.jpg, juvenile ''B. s. atricapilla'', Ghana Striated heron (Butorides striata chloriceps).jpg, ''B. s. chloriceps'', India File:Striated Heron on Santiago Island Galapagos.jpg, On Santiago Island, Galapagos Butorides striata javanica @ Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1).jpg, ''B. s. javanica'', Malaysia ButoridesSpodiogasterKeulemans.jpg, ''B. s. spodiogaster'', illustration by Keulemans, 1898 Héron à dos vert MHNT.jpg,

References

Sources

* Boswall, J. (1983): Tool-using and related behavior in birds: more notes. ''Avicultural Magazine'' 89: 94–108. * Greeney, Harold F. & Merino M., Paúl A. (2006): Notes on breeding birds from the Cuyabeno Faunistic Reserve in northeastern Ecuador. ''Boletín de la Sociedad Antioqueña de Ornitología'' 16(2): 46–57
PDF fulltext
* Norris, D. (1975): Green Heron (''Butorides virescens'') uses feather lure for fishing. ''American Birds'' 29: 652–654. * Robinson, S.K. (1994): Use of bait and lures by Green-backed Herons in Amazonian Peru. ''

Wilson Bulletin ''The Wilson Journal of Ornithology'' (until 2006 ''The Wilson Bulletin'') is a quarterly scientific journal published by the Wilson Ornithological Society. Both the society and its journal were named after American ornithologist Alexander Wilson ...

'' 106(3): 569–571 * Walsh, J.F.; Grunewald, J. & Grunewald, B. (1985): Green-backed Herons (''Butorides striatus'') possibly using a lure and using apparent bait. '' J. Ornithol.'' 126: 439–442. * Wiles, Gary J.; Worthington, David J.; Beck, Robert E. Jr.; Pratt, H. Douglas; Aguon, Celestino F. & Pyle, Robert L. (2000): Noteworthy Bird Records for Micronesia, with a Summary of Raptor Sightings in the Mariana Islands, 1988–1999. ''Micronesica'' 32(2): 257–284
PDF fulltext
* VanderWerf, Eric A.; Wiles, Gary J.; Marshall, Ann P. & Knecht, Melia (2006): Observations of migrants and other birds in Palau, April–May 2005, including the first Micronesian record of a Richard's Pipit. ''Micronesica'' 39(1): 11–29
PDF fulltext

External links

* (Striated heron = ) Greenbacked heron ''Butorides striata'' �
Species text in The Atlas of Southern African Birds

from Sustainable Bolivia {{Authority control

striated heron The striated heron (''Butorides striata'') also known as mangrove heron, little green heron or green-backed heron, is a small heron, about 44 cm tall. Striated herons are mostly sedentary and noted for some interesting behavioral traits. The ...

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