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Little Blue Heron

Egretta caerulea

Least Concern (IUCN Red List)Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns
Little Blue Heron, photographed by YamidW

Photo: YamidW · Wikimedia · CC-BY 4.0 (licence)

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Call and song

About the Little Blue Heron

Small heron with strikingly different adult and immature plumages. Adult is distinctive: mostly grayish-blue with a contrasting deep purplish head and neck. Also note greenish legs and bicolored bill. Immatures are all white in their first year, with tiny dark tips on the outer wingtips. Take care to separate from Snowy Egret; note Little Blue always has dull greenish legs, grayish or greenish lores, and usually a two-toned bill. Little Blue also forages more slowly, often pausing for long periods of time with neck outstretched and bill pointed down. In their first spring, Little Blues start to show splotches of gray-blue plumage. Locally common from the eastern U.S. to South America; especially common near the coast. Found in a variety of wetland habitats, especially shallow marshy pools.

Species account: eBird.org, fetched 2025-12-26 · How these pages are made

Where it has been recorded

Recorded in 57 of the 253 countries we have eBird lists for. Each opens that country's checklist.

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