Butorides striata
Silhouette: Andy Wilson · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~50%
The striated heron (Butorides striata) also known as mangrove heron or little green heron, is a small heron, about 44 cm tall. It is mostly sedentary and noted for some interesting behavioural traits. The breeding habitat is in South America and the Caribbean. The striated heron was formerly considered to be conspecific with the little heron that is found in the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia.
The striated heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other herons in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea striata. Linnaeus specified the locality as Suriname. The specific epithet is from Latin striatus meaning "striated". The striated heron is now one of four closely related species placed in the genus Butorides that was described in 1852 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.
This bird was long considered to be conspecific with the closely related North American species, the green heron, which is now usually separated as Butorides virescens, as well as the lava heron of the Galápagos Islands (now Butorides sundevalli, but often included... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Salvador | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 2 | Antananarivo | 🇲🇬 Madagascar | |
| 3 | Fortaleza | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 4 | Denpasar | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 5 | Recife | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Ouagadougou | 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso | |
| 7 | Jinhua | 🇨🇳 China | |
| 8 | Jakarta | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 9 | Makassar | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 10 | Zanzibar City | 🇹🇿 Tanzania |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Barcelona Zoo | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 2 | Parque Zoobotânico Arruda Câmara (BICA) | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 3 | Aquarama Barcelona | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 4 | L'Oceanogràfic | 🇪🇸 Spain | |
| 5 | Mangal das Garças | 🇧🇷 Brazil | |
| 6 | Cali Zoo | 🇨🇴 Colombia |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Striated Heron sighting in Kakadu National Park on a given day, based on 120 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 100th most-seen of the 186 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 50%, if each day is a fresh chance.
November
In that month about 30% of wildlife watchers report a Striated Heron in Kakadu National Park on a given day, against under 5% in July and December, the lowest months. February has too few records to rate.
Between 7 and 10 am
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Striated Heron sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
56th of 108
Of the 108 parks where we can rate Striated Heron sightings, Kakadu National Park ranks 56th at about 10%. The best odds are in Parque Estadual Encontro das Águas (Brazil, about 70%), Caroni Swamp (Trinidad and Tobago, about 60%) and Sundarbans National Park (India, about 60%). All parks ranked.
Same family: Ardeidae
The closest relatives of the Striated Heron that you can see in Kakadu National Park (family Ardeidae, Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns) are intermediate egret (about 50%), Great Egret (about 50%) and Pied Heron (about 40%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Striated Heron is recorded against all the birds logged in Kakadu National Park (120 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
