Intermediate Egret

Central Heron ( Ardea intermedia)

The middle Heron ( Ardea intermedia, Syn: Mesophoyx intermedia) is a species of bird in the heron family. It is a sleek, pure white heron with a long neck and dark legs. The distribution area of the Central Heron is Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia.

Features

The middle heron is a walking bird of medium size and white plumage. The body length is 56-70 inches. Head and neck make it about half. Means heron weigh an average of 400 grams.

He is easily distinguished from the Great Egret, because it's much smaller. From about the same size egrets, it differs by the yellow beak. In flight it is for it to realize that his relatively short legs less protrude beyond the tail than in other species of herons.

Occurrence

Its large circulation area covers the tropics of eastern Africa to southern and eastern Asia to Australia and Japan. In Tasmania and New Zealand, he is a Irrgast. Its habitat is wetlands and shallow coastal waters, but also flooded rice fields. Very rarely, he stayed on the coast.

Behavior

He hunts in shallow water standing for fish, crustaceans and insects. He usually stays within water depths of less than 8 inches, and preferably looking for food in water regions that are densely covered. His food he seeks in which he motionless in wait for prey, or by slowly forward march.

The nests are usually made of branches and twigs and are built on trees and shrubs near water. He nests in loose colonies, often in the company of other species of herons. The colonies can be very large. In the Australian Kakadu National Park had two colonies 1,800, 3,000 to 4,000 nests. The nests are shallow, only loosely zusammengfügte platforms that are built from fresh and dry branches. On construction both parents birds are involved. The brood consists of two to five eggs. The clutch is incubated by both adult birds and the rearing of young birds is carried out by both parents.

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