Green Heron
Butorides virescens
Green Heron · Everglades National Park · 6 February 2026
A Green Heron at the water's edge in the Everglades in February, the chestnut neck and glossy dark green back that give the species its name reading nearly black in the shade. It is a small heron of wooded ponds and mangrove creeks across the eastern United States and the tropics, hunting from cover.
One of the few birds known to use bait: Green Herons will drop a feather, an insect or a scrap onto the water and wait for a fish to investigate, a tool-using behaviour rare enough among birds to be studied in its own right.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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