Tricolored Heron

About the Tricolored Heron

The Tricolored Heron is the slender, snaky-necked heron of the Texas coast - slate blue-gray above with a rusty-purple neck, a white stripe down the front of the throat, and a clean white belly that separates it at once from the all-dark Little Blue Heron. In breeding season the bill turns brilliant blue and the head grows a few white plumes.

It is an active, almost frantic feeder compared to most herons - wading belly-deep, running, spinning, and spreading its wings to shade the water as it chases small fish through the shallows. Where the Reddish Egret dances on the flats, the Tricolored works the marsh channels and lagoon edges.

In Texas the Tricolored Heron is a year-round bird of the coast, nesting in mixed colonies on spoil islands, and it is one of the reliable pleasures of any coastal boardwalk - Leonabelle Turnbull, the Bolivar flats, or the Laguna Madre.