Animal
Great blue heron
Ardea herodias
The largest North American heron — a 4-foot-tall, slate-blue wading bird that hunts patiently along shorelines and freshwater margins. Common year-round at Staten Island's salt marshes, ponds, and tidal creeks: Lemon Creek Park, Mount Loretto's freshwater pond, the Greenbelt's wetlands, Wolfe's Pond Park, and the harbor edges.
Scientific
Ardea herodias stands 3.5–4.5 ft tall with a wingspan of 5.5–6.5 ft. Patient ambush predator on fish, frogs, snakes, small mammals, large insects. Solitary foragers but colonial nesters in waterside trees (“rookeries” of 5–500 nests). Year-round resident in much of the species’ range; some northern populations migratory.
On Staten Island
Common at every wetland-and-shoreline habitat type on the borough. Salt marshes (Lemon Creek, the harbor edges of the South Shore), freshwater ponds (Mount Loretto, Wolfe’s Pond, Silver Lake), tidal creeks, the Greenbelt’s interior wetlands. Sightings are routine year-round; numbers peak in late summer when juveniles disperse from rookeries.
See also
Auto-generated from this entry’s typed relations: frontmatter, grouped by relation type so the editorial signal isn’t flattened.
- Substrate of: new-york-harbor-estuary
- Member of: animal
- Contained by: staten-island
Sources
- NYC Audubon SI bird-survey records
- Multi-decade great blue heron ecology literature
Rooted in life.
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Scientific
substrate of
- Smooth cordgrass cordgrass marsh edges are principal foraging habitat for great blue herons and snowy egrets
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