Tricolored Herons are medium sized wading birds with slate blue feathers on most of their body except for a white chest and belly, and rust-colored neck with white stripe. They have long, yellowish colored legs and a long pointed yellow bill which turns blue during breeding season. Also known as the Louisiana Heron, they can be found in marshes, swamps, bayous, mudflats, lagoons and coastal ponds from Florida up the Atlantic coast to Maine, around the Gulf Coast to New Mexico and ranging south to northern South America and the West Indies.

The Tricolored Heron is an extremely slender bird, and moves gracefully about as it searches for fish, insects and frogs. Despite their relatively small size, they often forage in deep water with their legs completely underwater, giving the appearance that the bird is swimming.

Gatorland has a large number of Tricolored Herons that nest in the small trees and bushes along the walkways. Colonial nesters, they make their nests in colonies with other herons and egrets. The females breed once a year and have been known to lay up to seven blue-green eggs.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 4:14 am and is filed under The Birds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.