Poster Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Florida

"Yellow-Crowned Night Heron, Sanibel Island, Florida" by Catherine Sherman. A yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea) walks along a marsh in the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge, which is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located in southwestern Florida, on Sanibel Island in the Gulf of Mexico. Yellow-crowned Night Herons are fairly small herons with stocky bodies and short, thick necks, and short legs, according to allaboutbirds.org. These herons have large, blocky heads with thick, relatively short bills. In flight, the wings are broad and rounded. They are most common in coastal wetlands barrier islands, saltmarshes, drainage ditches, and mangroves; they also occur inland along bottomland forests, swamps, and sometimes wet lawns or fields. Yellow-crowned Night-Herons slowly stalk prey in or near shallow water, usually alone, with a hunched, forward-leaning posture. They perch quietly on stumps and tree branches, often over water. The majority of their prey is crustaceans, especially crabs and crayfish.