Black-crowned Night Heron

The black-crowned night heron is a stocky, medium-sized heron with a shorter bill, legs and neck than egrets and day herons, usually standing in a hunched posture. Adults have a black crown and back, pale grey wings, white or grey underparts, red eyes and short yellow legs, and one to eight long, slender white plumes on the back of the head that are raised in display. For a short time during courtship the legs turn salmon-pink and the skin around the eye blue. The sexes are similar, though males are slightly larger (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in fresh and saltwater wetlands across much of the world, nesting in colonies on stick platforms in groups of trees or on the ground in protected places such as islands and reedbeds, and lays three to eight eggs. In Australasia it is replaced by the Nankeen night heron, with which it hybridises where they meet. The genus name comes from Greek words for night and raven (Wikipedia, general species account).