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Overview
Comprehensive Description
Description
Also known as the little heron due to its small size, the striated heron has a dark grey back, a thick grey to reddish-brown neck, a large, dark beak, and a glossy greenish-black cap, with a short crest. The chin and throat are sometimes white, marked with a reddish-brown vertical band, and the underparts are brownish-grey to grey. However, the species is quite variable in appearance, and several subspecies are recognised. In general, the female striated heron tends to be slightly smaller and duller in colour than the male, while juveniles are brown with white spots, and have a brown-black crown with white streaks. The head, neck and underparts are streaked with buff-white, but this streaking is gradually lost as the bird matures. The striated heron is not a very vocal bird, but may give a ‘keeuuk’ call in flight or when alarmed. Displaying males may also use a ‘skow’ call, to which the female may respond with a gentle ‘coo’.
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Distribution
Global Distribution
The striated heron has an extremely large range, from South America, through central and southern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India and the Indian Ocean islands, to south and east Asia, Australia, and islands in the Pacific Ocean.
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Physical Description
Size
Ecology
Habitat
Habitat and Ecology
Systems
- Terrestrial
- Freshwater
- Marine
© International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
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IUCN
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Habitat
The striated heron is found in a wide variety of habitats, but usually near water, including mangrove-lined shores and estuaries, river edges, swamps, forested streams, lakes, salt flats, woods, rice fields and canals. It has been recorded from sea level up to elevations of about 4,000 metres.
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Life History and Behavior
Behavior
Behaviour
The diet of the striated heron consists mainly of fish, but it is an opportunistic feeder and will also take insects, worms, crustaceans, frogs, reptiles and even other birds. It usually feeds alone, often standing for long periods in or next to water, waiting to strike at prey. This species has also been observed to use an ingenious ‘fishing’ technique, dropping insects or leaves onto the surface of the water to attract prey, a method known as baiting.
The striated heron does not appear to have a specific breeding season, nesting year-round in some areas, although often with a peak during the rains. The species may breed up to three times a year, constructing a nest in shrubs, bushes or trees, overhanging the water. At the nest site, the male performs an elaborate courtship display involving crest-raising, neck fluffing and ‘snap and stretch’ displays, in which the bird moves its head down to its feet and snaps the beak, before stretching the neck straight up and back. The courting pair then perform this ‘snap and stretch’ display together. The female striated heron lays three to five eggs, which usually take around 21 to 25 days to hatch. Both adults tend to the young, and it is quite common for this care to continue for quite some time after the young leave the nest. Most striated heron pairs nest alone, although loose breeding colonies do sometimes occur.
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Molecular Biology and Genetics
Molecular Biology
Barcode data: Butorides striata
There are 12 barcode sequences available from BOLD and GenBank. Below is a sequence of the barcode region Cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COI or COX1) from a member of the species. See the BOLD taxonomy browser for more complete information about this specimen and other sequences.
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Download FASTA File
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Statistics of barcoding coverage: Butorides striata
Public Records: 12
Species: 18
Species With Barcodes: 1
© Barcode of Life Data Systems
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Conservation
Conservation Status
IUCN Red List Assessment
Red List Category
Red List Criteria
Version
Year Assessed
Assessor/s
Reviewer/s
Contributor/s
Justification
History
- 2008Least Concern
- 2005Least Concern
- 2004Not Recognized
- 2000Not Recognized
- 1994Not Recognized
- 1988Not Recognized
© International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
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IUCN
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Status in Egypt
Resident breeder and regular passage visitor.
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Threats
Threats
© International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
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IUCN
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Threats
The striated heron remains widespread and numerous, and is not currently considered at risk of extinction. However, the species has been affected by human disturbance, particularly through habitat loss, such as the destruction of mangroves in Asia and Australia. Pesticides used for agricultural purposes are also a potential threat, affecting the heron both directly, through the ingestion of contaminated prey, and indirectly, by reducing prey availability. In some parts of the world the striated heron is also hunted for food.
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Wikipedia
Striated Heron
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; the bird recorded on Yap on February 25, 1991, was from a continental Asian rather than from a Melanesian population, while the origin of the bird seen on Palau on May 3, 2005 was not clear.[1]
This bird was long considered to be conspecific with the closely related North American species, the Green Heron, which is now usually separated as B. virescens, as well as the Lava Heron of the Galápagos Islands (now B. sundevalli, but often included in B. striata, e.g. by BirdLife International[2]); collectively they were called "green-backed herons".
Description and ecology
Adults have a blue-grey back and wings, white underparts, a black cap 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[3].
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 is 2–5 eggs, which are pale blue and measure around 36 by 28 mm.[4]
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.[4]
Young birds will give a display when they feel threatened, by stretching out their necks and pointing the bill skywards. In how far this would deter predators is not known.[4]
Widespread and generally common, the Striated Heron is classified as a Species of Least Concern by the IUCN; this holds true whether the Lava Heron is included in B. striata or not.[2]
Footnotes
References
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Butorides striata |
- BirdLife International (BLI) (2008). Butorides striata. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 7 January 2008.
- 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 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
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Wikipedia
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