Discussion: The green heron is...

...brown, right? Or is that a trick of the light?!

I've been loving our daily walks to the Cemetery which is now an arboretum at the end of the street. Plenty of painted turtles, a great cormorant, and a heron with a fluffy crest that I haven't yet identified. Plenty of other smaller birds I'm completely unfamiliar with too.

Dark green on the upper side of the wings, so it depends what angle you are viewing it from, and also the light, and also whether it has its neck stretched out or not.

More here

Becks, is this your fluffy crowned heron?

I wonder if ours is a juvenile - the coloring is similar but there is substantially more fluff!

Anything I'm not sure of, I always try to get a photo, or several photos. May not be in perfect focus, or show the best angle, but it really helps. And you learn a lot too.

Juveniles (and often females) are usually less distinct.

I did see (on the All About Birds site I linked to above) a photo of a non breeding male adult blue heron with lots of fluffed out feathers.