Tricolored Heron

Egretta tricolor · Herons & egrets

Tricolored Heron at the mangrove roots

Everglades National Park, 6 February 2026

A Tricolored Heron working the tangle of mangrove prop roots in the Everglades rather than open water. It is a heron of the coastal marshes and mangroves of the Gulf and Atlantic, and the most active hunter of the Florida herons, running, spinning and opening its wings to shade the water.

The roots are exactly the structure that traps small fish on a falling tide, and exactly why a wading bird will pick this stretch of bank over the clearer channel a few feet away. It is rarely still for as long as a Great Egret.

Tricolored Heron on the mudflat

Everglades National Park, 6 February 2026

A Tricolored Heron on bare mud at a receding waterline in the Everglades in February, which is where the species does most of its fishing. It is a heron of the coastal marshes and mudflats of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and the most restless hunter of the Florida herons.

It wades, and sometimes runs, after prey with a jerky, unpredictable gait that other herons don't share, and will raise one wing to throw a shadow on the water, so that fish swim into the shade and the heron's reach. The white belly under a slate-blue body is the mark; no other dark heron in Florida has it.

Tricolored Heron over the water

Everglades National Park, 6 February 2026

A Tricolored Heron over the water in the Everglades in February, wet and slightly hunched, recently up from a dive rather than settled in for a long wait. It is a heron of the coastal marshes and mangroves of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and the Everglades hold more of them than anywhere.

The white belly against a dark blue-grey body and neck is the field mark that gave this species its old name, Louisiana Heron, and still separates it at a glance from every other dark heron in Florida. A Little Blue Heron of similar colouring has no white below at all.