kmatthew

The Chinese Pond Heron is infact a juv Night Heron. Like the pose on both of them, nice shots!!

kmatthew

lchunfai, I was purely lucky when it flew down from the tall trees to a closer tree next to the road!! p.s try waiting til 5:30pm - 6:00pm when there are less crowds, it may come closer!!

lwingkay, the first juv shot was a younger bird, as you can see it have more spots on it's back. The second juv photo is starting to moult into adult plumage. You can see no spots on the back on that bird.

For me, Night Herons are more stocky, with a shorter and thicker beak. They also looks "humped back" a lot of the time. To split juv Night Herons to juv/winter Chinese Pond Herons can be done by eye colour; Night=red(always as i know), Chinese=Yellow. Night Herons seems to have larger eyes compared with Chinese. Wings of winter Chinese are white while Night are dark brown.

hope these info help a bit!!

[ Last edited by kmatthew at 9/08/2008 23:01 ]

kmatthew

Chinese Pond Herons have white wings in both breeding & non breeding plumage, not sure about juv... Night Herons have grey wings in adult plumage and dark brown in juv. birds ...as for the yellow eyes in your first juv photo, I checked again with some other bird guides and they say it can range from dark yellow, orange to red. I guess according to it's age but when it changes colour I have no idea. I personally don't recall seeing much Night Herons with yellow eyes...mainly orange or reds...

lchunfai,佢打雷都唔驚...你耐心D等啦!!只要有恆心,White-breast都行近!!

[ Last edited by kmatthew at 10/08/2008 00:20 ]