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Home » Information » Grey Heron in Uganda (“Ardea Cinerea”)

Grey Heron in Uganda (“Ardea Cinerea”)

Grey Heron

What to Know About the Grey Heron in Uganda?

The Grey Heron in Uganda is one of the African birds of Uganda seen during Birding Tours. A grey heron is a long-legged and massive predatory wading bird of the heron family-Ardeidae, kingdom-Animalia and phylum Chordata.

It has a length of about 84-100cm, wingspan-1-6-2m and weight 1-2.1kg. it can live from 15 to 24 years.

How Does a Grey Heron in Uganda Look Like?

A Grey heron has white head and neck with a black stripe that covers from the eye to the crest which is also black.

It has grey body and wings and the downer parts are greyish-white, with some black on the sides. The bill is sharply pointed, long and pinkish-yellow while the legs are brown

Both sexes are similar, but female has shorter aigrets. The immature grey heron is greyer, with no black markings on head and breast.

General plumage may be more or less dark. Legs are duller, mostly dark greyish-brown. The beak shows grey upper mandible and yellowish lower mandible.

How Does a Grey Heron in Uganda Sing and Make Calls?

Grey Heron’s vocal is quite unfriendly. It has a hard and high-pitched moaning “fraark” during flight and sometimes at nest, by day or night, with other guttural sounds “frauk-jauk-jauk-ak-ak”.

Where Does a Grey Heron of Uganda Live?

Grey Heron lives in numerous kinds of habitats with shallow fresh, brackish or salt water. It can be seen in plain places, though it needs some trees for nesting.

Inland, it is usually seen near rivers, lakes, marshes and rice fields. It frequents estuaries, mangroves and tidal mudflats.

It is usually seen from sea-level up to 500-1000meters of elevation, it can even be seen up to 2000 to 3500-4000 meters according to the range.

How Does the Grey Heron in Uganda Feed?

Grey Heron, like other Ardeidae, can stay immobile for a long time at water edge, waiting for prey. It is a passive feeder, standing on one leg, while the neck sunk within shoulders.

If worried, it raises its neck, still and attentive, and may set off immediately.

Grey Heron may also hunt in crouched posture, with body and neck parallel to the ground or the water. When the prey is near, it spikes it with its bill.

It also strides deliberately in shallow water or at the edge, looking for preys. A grey heron uses its wings to startle the prey by staggered open and close wings, or use them as an umbrella, in order to entice the prey into the shade, but also to condense the light for better visibility.

A Grey heron can also use its feet, inserting one foot into the water or the mud in order to frighten the prey, or use the “foot-stirring” by vibrating one leg in the same way.

It swallows its prey by the head first to the whole, swallowing time depends on the size of the prey.

Usually, the grey heron feeds singly and protects its feeding grounds, but occasionally, small groups can be seen feeding together at abundant food sources.

In group, Grey Herons line up, mainly in the evening, wondering here and there. They search for insects, but also small rodents and frogs.[

How Does a Prey Heron in Uganda Breed?

Grey Heron’s courtship display is an elaborated ceremonial. The heron arrives at the nest, erects its crest while it voices loudly.

The one lodging the nest responds with elongated neck upwards, moving it back and forth, with beak pointed upwards and bending, in order to have its body at the nest level.

Then, it bends the neck and head up to the legs’ level, and cracks the bill noisily.

This display is a call to the male with insistent manner from the old nest, using the same movement and taking frequently a twig into the bill.

If a female just enters into the nest site, she may be instantly ejected from the nest by the male. Females have to adopt a shy and gentle attitude to win the male’s trust.

When one is allowed, male cracks the beak for about 20 to 40 times. Pair-bonds last only one breeding season.

Breeding season differs according to the range. Grey heron breeds in colonies, usually mixed with other species in the same trees.

How Does a Grey Heron in Uganda Reproduce?

Female grey heron lays from 1 to 10 white or pale blue eggs. Eggs are laid each two-days. Incubation is done by both parents between 25-26days.

At hatching, chicks are having brownish-grey down and whitish underparts. Both parents feed their young ones.

For the first 20 days, an adult remains at nest to take care of the young. Male and female incubate four times a day, always with the same display.

Juveniles are protected from sun and rain. Young are fed by regurgitation by adults into the mouth.

They fledge about 50 days after hatching, and they remain 10 to 20 days more at nest. Grey Heron produces once annually, hardly two, except when the first clutch is wrecked.

In this case, another clutch comes fast after destruction of previous brood.

What is Threatening The Grey Heron in Uganda?

Grey Herons are poached and trapped by humans. it is threatened by variations in the habitat with drainage of wetlands, deforestation and instabilities at nest-site.

However, numbers are increasing in most parts of the range. currently, populations are stable and not much threatened.

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