Ashy Héron

Description

Same family that the storks, will hérons them ashy are characterized by a long neck, a long and pointed nozzle and high legs. The ashy héron has an excellent side panoramic sight and a very good frontal binocular vision. Its hearing, also very developed, the fact of reacting to the least suspect noises. The ashy héron in general reaches 95 cm height and a scale of 1,85 m for a weight from 1,6 to 2 kg.

The ashy héron presents a plumage to dominant gray. The young people have a duller plumage: their back is gray-brownish, their neck is gray and their belly white is striped black. They do not have a " huppe". The young people will hérons acquire their plumage of adult at the two years age. The ashy héron can live 25 years.

Habitat

Large solitary wader (apart from the period of nesting), the ashy héron pole commonly in large trees along the ponds. He attends all moist environments and not very major. It is migrating partial which generally does not move beyond 500 kilometers; the héron has a little extended territory. Certain subjects remain even sedentary. When it drives out, the ashy héron can remain a long time motionless, the drawn up neck, while waiting for the passage of its prey. When it passes to range of its nozzle, it is seized some quickly while projecting forwards the upper part of its neck.

Food

The ashy héron generally nourishes Poisson, but it is not exclusively ichtyophage. Indeed, its food mode is also composed of Batraciens, Reptiles, Crustacés, small Mammifères (shrews of water, field voles, mulots, rats), of Oiseaux and even of Végétaux (buds). The ashy héron does not neglect either the Insectes and the terrestrial and watery Mollusques. It can digest the edges but it is not the same for the hairs of Rongeurs as it rejects in the form of balls.

Reproduction

Will hérons ashy reproduce February at July. They generally nest in colonies, called héronnières, at the top of the trees, the edges of the lakes and the rivers (that of the second photograph is in the Durance with stopping EDF of Mallemort). Will hérons build a flat nest there, in the shape of platform, where the female will come to lay from 3 to 6 quite clear eggs. These eggs will be brooded alternatively by the two parents during 25 to 28 days. The young people take their take-off around 50 days and leave the territory of the parents at the end of 8 to 9 weeks.

Characteristics

The flight of the ashy héron is slow, with the folded up neck. This is characteristic of will hérons, contrary to the storks, of the cranes and the spatulas which extend their neck while flying. Their cry is a strong cawing: “fraaank”. The héron hardly has enemies, the more so as it is protected since 1974. It is even able to live in the water levels of the great urban extents and can thus be seen into full Paris.

External references

Zh-min-nan: Hái-khiā-á

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