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Cranes fly with their necks extended outwards instead of bent into an S-shape (differentiating them from the similar-looking herons) [3] and their long legs outstretched. They also have musical, long-reaching calls and elaborate courtship displays .
The white-faced heron (Egretta novaehollandiae) also known as the white-fronted heron, [2] and incorrectly as the grey heron, [3] or blue crane, [2] is a common bird throughout most of Australasia, including New Guinea, the islands of Torres Strait, Indonesia, New Zealand, and all but the driest areas of Australia.
Cranes are territorial and generally seasonal breeders. Seasonality varies both between and within species, depending on local conditions. Migratory species begin breeding upon reaching their summer breeding grounds, between April and June. The breeding season of tropical species is usually timed to coincide with the wet or monsoon seasons. [2]
The great egret (Ardea alba), also known as the common egret, large egret, or (in the Old World) great white egret [2] or great white heron, [3] [4] [5] is a large, widely distributed egret. The four subspecies are found in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and southern Europe.
The feathers of the herons are soft and the plumage is usually blue, black, brown, grey, or white, and can often be strikingly complex. Amongst the day herons, little sexual dimorphism in plumage is seen (except in the pond-herons); however, for the night herons and smaller bitterns, plumage differences between the sexes are the rule.
These mostly relate to its habit of following cattle and other large animals, and it is known variously as cow crane, cow bird or cow heron, or even elephant bird or rhinoceros egret. [23] Its Arabic name, abu qerdan, means "father of ticks", a name derived from the huge number of parasites such as avian ticks found in its breeding colonies.
The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America, as well as far northwestern South America, the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is occasionally found in the Azores and is a rare vagrant to Europe.
There are only two suprafamilial clades (natural groups) among the birds traditionally classified as Gruiformes. Rails (), flufftails (Sarothruridae), finfoots and sungrebe (Heliornithidae), adzebills (Aptornithidae), trumpeters (), limpkin (), and cranes compose the suborder Grues and are termed "core-Gruiformes". [4]