Purple Heron

• GeneralIt nests on bent-over reeds and hides by stretching its neck straight up.
• Faced with a threat it adopts what is known as the "bittern stance": it stretches its neck to the full with its bill pointing skywards and freezes, becoming almost invisible among the reeds. The chicks already do it.
• The parents carry food in their crop and regurgitate it when the chicks prompt them by grasping their bill.
• In 2011 more than half of its Spanish colonies were mixed with other herons.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (bird)

Habitat and environment

Extensive reedbeds, marshes and rice paddies

Sexual maturity

2 years

Gestation / incubation

25-30 days, with both members of the pair taking turns

Litter / clutch size

4-5 pale blue-green eggs, sometimes up to 8 (though large clutches are usually from two females in the same nest), laid at three-day intervals. A single clutch a year

Sources consulted: SEO/BirdLife (ficha y III Atlas de las aves en época de reproducción en España); IUCN Red List; Asturnatura; Garrido López 2022, III Atlas; Garrido, Molina y Del Moral 2012, Las garzas en España (SEO/BirdLife); Acuerdo AEWA; Región de Murcia Digital

Best time: From April to September; it is a summer visitor in Spain