#1018 · 🐦 birds

Great Blue Heron

🇳🇱 Amerikaanse Blauwe Reiger ·Ardea herodias

LCleast concern 🐦 Birds 📍 in Europe, not in NL

7 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences

what is it?

The great blue heron ( Ardea herodias ) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found only in the Caribbean and Florida was once treated as a separate species...

base stats

NL sightings 0iNaturalist, research grade
worldwide 473,111iNaturalist observations
weight 2.5 kgadult, up to
threat LCleast concern

Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).

fun facts

No confirmed wild sightings in the Netherlands on iNaturalist: you'd have to travel for this one.
473,111 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
Weighs up to about 2.5 kg.
Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).