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Bird · Nycticorax nycticorax
Black-crowned night heron
IUCN LC · Least concern
A stocky grey heron with a black cap and back and startling red eyes.
How to recognise it
By day they sit hunched and motionless in the mangrove canopy; at dusk they flap out low over the city to feed. Two long white plumes trail from the nape in breeding condition.
Where to see it
Kochi
With the little cormorant it forms the breeding colony that makes Mangalavanam, a 2.74-hectare mangrove patch behind the High Court, the green lung of central Kochi. Nesting there has been recorded from February to July, with the greatest variety of birds in May and July, and the house crow is the colony's main nest predator.
Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary