Wild and captive Amsterdam zoo birds

Night Heron / Nycticorax nycticorax

Artis is not just the oldest zoo in the Netherlands. It is also one of just three places in the Netherlands with (small) black-crowned night heron colonies. The other two are Rotterdam zoo and the Ijssel river region.

Today, a black-crowned night heron took a fish from a bucket in the pelican enclosure, pursued by a jealous grey heron. Like black-crowned night herons, grey herons live freely in and around the zoo. The black-crowned night herons are in their breeding season now, with adults feeding juveniles; like in a tree in the Aldabra tortoise enclosure.

There is breeding season for the Artis griffon vultures as well. On 20 April, a chick was born and it is doing well. The big vulture cage has a fence with holes big enough for smaller birds like magpies to come inside and join the vultures in feeding; as happens with vultures living in the wild as well. There used to be ravens in the cage, but not anymore. The Egyptian vulture has been moved to another cage.

Related articles

• Another Discovery: The Black-Crowned Night Heron (theydontfoolme.com)
• My First Birds (koreamaria.typepad.com)
• Night Heron at Night (wildlifepic.wordpress.com)
• Birding in Brazil: a view from suburban Rio de Janeiro (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• Black-crowned Night-Herons: Adult and Juvenile (fishkind.wordpress.com)
• seen along the la river (eastcoastkaty.wordpress.com)
• Water Birds Turning Up Dead at Solar Projects in the Desert (kcet.org)
• It’s hot and sunny, so birds lie down and sunbathe (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• Black-crowned Night-Heron (scrabble66.typepad.com)
• Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #45 (newswatch.nationalgeographic.com)