SE China birds (1 Viewer)

[Gretchen]

Hi, these are pictures from rural areas around Nanchang, Jiangxi - south China - in the last month. The first three are 2 different herons, which I wonder if they are black-crowned night herons, or something else. The next very blurry picture is a tern, perhaps whiskered tern? The last might be a prinia...

Thanks for helping!

 

[aeshna5]

The heron is a Striated Heron.
Agree with Whiskered Tern + Plain Prinia for last.

 

[MKinHK]

Hi Gretchen

Pic 3 shows an immature Black-crowned Night Heron, but the first two are indeed Striated.

From these pics the most obvious differences are the colour of the eye and the skin in front of the eye - yellow on Striated - no bare skin and an orange eye on the Night Heron.

Cheers
Mike

 

[Gretchen]

Hi,

Thanks both! We were in a huge heronry yesterday and saw so many different birds. I had initially assumed all the ones with stripes were immature night herons, but we took more pictures in case. When I got home to the book, I wondered about striated heron. Thanks Mike for the good clues for telling them apart.

I don't know how I had not seen the whiskered terns here initially, but now see them from time to time, and good to have confirmed what they are.