Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

Table

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron – Accepted
1. “last week of June” 1951	ATY	Venice LA	1992-070	14	ph., Roberson (1993)
2. 03 Nov 1962	ASY	Tijuana R. mouth SD	1986-042	10
3. 30 May–02 Jun 1963	ATY	Wilmington LA	1984-088	9	ph.
4. 22–25 Oct 1963	ATY	Tijuana R. mouth SD	1986-039	10	ph., SDNHM 30758
5. 12 Jul–18 Sep 1968	TY	San Rafael MRN	1977-126	4	ph.
and 03 May–14 Jul 1969	*		2004-595	30
and 03 Sep 1969	*		2004-595	30
and 10 May–27 Jul 1970	*		2004-596	30
and 29 May–“summer” 1971	*		2004-597	30
and 28 May–18 Jul & 05 Nov 1972	*		2004-598	30
and 8 Apr–29 Jun & mid Oct 1973	*		2004-599	30
6. 11 May 1977	ATY	San Joaquin Marsh ORA	1978-046	5	ph., Hoechlin (1978), AB 31:1046, Roberson (1980)
7. 03 Apr 1979	ATY	Mission Bay SD	2005-113	31
8. 15 Apr–02 May 1979	ATY	Tijuana R. mouth SD	1980-154	6
9. 20–26 Apr 1980	ATY	Ventura VEN	1980-091	6	ph., AB 34:815
10. 18–26 Jul 1980	ATY	Imperial Beach SD	1980-123	6	ph.
11. 30 Apr–03 May 1981	TY	Santa Clara R. mouth VEN	1982-011	7
12. 12 Sep–17 Oct 1981	SY	Año Nuevo State Reserve SM	1981-080	7	ph.
13. 25 Oct 1981–03 Jan 1982	ASY	San Elijo Lagoon SD	1981-088	7
and 30 May–19 Jul 1982		La Jolla SD	1982-081	8	ph.
and 20 Feb–29 Aug 1983			1983-036	8
and 04 Jul–09 Oct 1984			1984-237	10	ph.
and 19–31 Mar 1985	*		2004-600	11,30
and 05 Dec 1985–25 Jan 1986			1986-018	11	Fig. 90, ph., Clarke (1989:169)
and 09–25 Apr 1987			1987-186	12
and 16 Jan–28 Feb 1988			1988-081	13
and 26 Apr–27 Jul 1989			1989-075	13	built a nest
and 01 Mar–31 Jul 1990			1990-063	15
and 24 Nov–01 Dec 1990		Los Peñasqitos Lagoon SD	1990-063	15
and 18 Dec 1990–26 Feb 1991		La Jolla SD	1991-046	16
and 26 Dec 1991–25 Jul 1992			1992-084	18	ph.
and 26 Dec 1992–23 Jan 1993			1993-028	19
and 14 May 1993		San Elijo Lagoon SD	1993-028	19
and winter 1993/1994		La Jolla SD	1994-060	20	ph.
and 26 Feb–04 Mar 1995			1995-035	21
and 01 Apr–01 Jun 1996			1996-072	22
and 01 Mar–03 May 1997			1997-065	23
and 30 Apr–26 May 1998			1998-083	24
and 09 Apr–06 May 2000			2000-074	26
and 25 Mar–06 Dec 2001			2001-069	27
14. 09 May 1984	ATY	Santa Margarita R. mouth SD	1984-076	9
15. 30 Sep 1990–07 Jan 1991	ASY	Tijuana R. valley SD	1990-153	16
and 13 Oct 1991–25 Jan 1992			1991-170	17
16. 16 Jun 1991–31 Mar 1992	SY	Tijuana R. valley SD 1991-088/1991-171	16
17. 13 Sep–30 Nov 1991	ASY	Glendale LA	1991-219	17	ph.
18. 30 Aug–07 Sep 1995	HY	Pt. Mugu VEN	1995-101	21	Fig. 205, ph., FN 50:114, Garrett & Singer (1998)
19. 27 Apr–30 Jun 1996	SY	Fig Lagoon IMP	1996-067	22	ph.
20. 17–19 May 2001	ATY	Famosa Slough SD	2001-105	27	ph.
21. 11 Jun–24 Sep 2002	SY-TY	San Elijo Lagoon SD	2002-137	28	ph.
22. 23–24 Jul 2002	ATY	Coyote Pt. SM	2002-139	28	ph., NAB 56:483
23. 19 Sep 2002–10 Apr 2003	ATY	Ventura VEN	2002-159	28	ph.
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron – Not accepted, identification not established
01–11 Nov 1963		Solana Beach SD	1986-249	14
05 Jul 1977		Tomales Bay MRN	1978-102	5
14 May 1984		Furnace Creek Ranch INY	1984-095	9
04 May 1991		Bodega Bay SON	1991-087	16
15 Apr 1995		Playa del Rey LA	1995-075	22
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron – Not submitted
27 Mar–06 Apr 1963		Claremont LA		14	AFN 17:357, 434; Garrett & Dunn (1981)
21 Jun 1986	ASY	San Elijo Lagoon SD			AB 40:1255, see table entry 13
and 27 Jun–19 Jul 1986		La Jolla SD			AB 40:1255
and 31 Jul 1990		Mission Bay SD			AB 44:1185
06 May–27 Jun 1996	ATY	Ocean Beach SD			FN 50:332, 996
26 Mar–21 Apr 1998		Mission Bay SD			FN 52:390, see table entry 13
and 20 Nov 1999		Los Peñasquitos Lagoon SD			Unitt (2004)
22 Jun 1998		vic. Mission Bay SD			Unitt (2004)
05 Jul 1999	SY	La Jolla SD			NAB 53:432
03 May 2000		Famosa Slough SD			FN 54:326
06 Dec 2001–04 May 2002		La Jolla SD			NAB 56:223, 356

Figures

Figure 90. A widely seen adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron frequented coastal San Diego County—usually at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography—for 20 years. This photograph, taken at Scripps in January 1986, shows the celebrated bird against a backdrop of eucalyptus leaves (1986-018; Herbert Clarke).

Figure 205. Note the thick, dark bill and fine plumage pattern of this first-fall Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, photographed on 4 September 1995 at Point Mugu, Ventura County. Perhaps owing to the relative difficulty of identifying young birds, most California records have involved adults (1995-101; Don DesJardin).

Figure H-10. Crabs and other crustaceans are prime staples of the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron’s diet, as demonstrated by this two-year-old individual, photographed on 7 July 2005 in Imperial Beach, San Diego County (2005-079; Vic Murayama).

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron

YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON Nyctanassa violacea (Linnaeus, 1758)

Accepted: 23 (82%)	Treated in Appendix H: yes
Not accepted: 5	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 8	Large color image: see Figures

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron This crab-loving heron breeds across the East, from the southern central Great Plains north and east to the Great Lakes and southern New England. Resident populations occur in areas where its favored forms of prey—fiddler crabs and crawfish—remain active all year. Such areas extend from coastal South Carolina south to southern Florida and along parts of the Gulf coast, then south along the coasts of Middle America, including Baja California Sur, to northern and eastern South America. Non-breeding wanderers reach southern Canada with some regularity. Westerly vagrants have been recorded in southern Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, western Montana, Washington, northern Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as on Clipperton Atoll.

California’s first record of a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, involving an adult present in late June 1951 at Venice, Los Angeles County, was reviewed and accepted four decades later when photographs of the bird finally surfaced. Most records fall between early April and early November. The record of a bird that returned six consecutive years to San Rafael, Marin County, and two records from San Mateo County were the only ones from the northern half of the state as of this book’s cutoff date; Appendix H reports on a more recent record from Marin County. In contrast to Arizona’s three records (Speich and Witzeman 1975, Monson and Phillips 1981, Rosenberg and Witzeman 1998), a first-spring bird present 27 April–30 June 1996 at Fig Lagoon in Imperial County furnished California’s only inland record (but see also Appendix H).

From 1981 to at least 2002, a bird took up residence in coastal San Diego County, between San Elijo Lagoon and La Jolla. Each spring, it associated with Black-crowned Night-Herons that nest at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla (Figure 90). Another adult was reported among nesting Black-crowneds at Sea World in Mission Bay 26 March–21 April 1998 (FN 52:390). After three years of periodic reports from this general area, the bird was finally documented between 17 and 19 May 2001 at Famosa Slough, with the details submitted for CBRC review (Garrett and Wilson 2003). As reviewed in Appendix H, California’s first successful nesting was documented in 2006.

The state’s only specimen refers to N. v. bancrofti, the large-billed subspecies of western Mexico (McCaskie and Banks 1966, Unitt 2004).