Inquisitive juvenile little green heron
When I was on a personal trip to Texas fairly recently, I spotted this youngster! At first, I could not make heads or tails of this big baby; for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what he was! After an encounter with an adult little green heron (back at home), I saw the resemblance! I did extensive research to see that I was right... He was a little green heron, although he was a juvenile!
The green heron is a small heron of North and Central America. It was long considered conspecific with its sister species the striated heron, and together they were called "green-backed heron". Birds of the nominate subspecies are extremely rare vagrants to western Europe; individuals from the Pacific coast of North America may similarly stray as far as Hawaii.
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