Green Heron

GREEN HERON

Buturides virescent aka West Indian Green or Little Gaulin

This is a small dark heron, one of the commonest of best Indian water birds. It is about 18 inches high, with a maroon head and neck and a black tuft on the top. The back and wings are a glossy green with some violet on the back, and the breast is chestnut with a white streak. It loves swampy places and nests in shrubs or reeds near water. The nest is a loose platform of sticks.

In which this heron lays 3 eggs of a pale blueish green.

I have shown this heron and its two hungry chicks in Anegada, the Drowned Island, and the nearest land for desperate mariners shipwrecked on the dreaded Anegada Reef, among them Prince Rupert of the Rhine and the forbears of Pirate Norman, who was lucky enough to be able to relieve two wrecked ships of their fabulous Spanish treasure, which he later hid in the caves of Norman Island.