Discover the Elusive Night Herons [Video]

Costa Rica is home to a variety of herons, egrets, and bitterns. In general, they are birds with long legs and sharp beaks that search for prey in aquatic environments. Almost every one of these species keeps a diurnal schedule. They’re up nice and early, gobbling down some aquatic organisms as the rising sun’s rays begin to grace the landscape with their light, and then finding a nice roost to spend the night as evening falls. A few species, on the other hand, work the night shift, roosting during the day and doing the work of hunting at night. Today we meet two such species, the black-crowned night-heron and the yellow-crowned night-heron.

The black-crowned night-heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) has a handful of names in Spanish. The formal name is martinete coroninegro. Its other, more fun, names are huaco, guaco, and chocuaca. These names are onomatopoeias, meaning words that resemble/suggest the sound that they describe. If you look …