Indian Pond Heron

The Indian Pond Heron or Paddy bird with the scientific name of Ardeola grayii is a small heron which is one of the most commonly found species in India and is widely spread all around the world.

The quick classification of Indian Pond Heron is as below,

Kingdom	Animalia
Class	Aves
Order	Ciconiiformes
Family	Ardeidae
Genus	Ardeola
Species	Ardeola grayii
Clutch Size	3 eggs to 5 eggs

Physical Characteristics:

The Indian Pond heron has a short neck, short thick and tiny bill and buff brown back. Herons have looks similar to storks and cranes. The Indian pond heron's entire body ranges about 42 to 46 cm long. The wing span of the Indian Pond heron ranges from about 70 to 90 cm. They weight about 230 to 267 grams. The feathers of the Indian Pond heron are very soft in nature. Its feathers on the neck start growing and become long in the summer season. The pond heron's wings are white in colour. Because of this , it looks white when it is flying. The Indian Pond heron's voice is very similar to human voice.


The plumage of the heron looks in different colours like blue, black, green, brown and white. It produces a sound "Wakoo" when it is breeding. They have a little sexual dimorphism. Because of the modification in the shape of the sixth vertebrae, they are able to kink their neck into an S-shape.

They are able to retract and extend their neck during the flight time. The neck size should be long for day herons when compared to the night herons. The Indian pond heron is one of the birds which have long and strong legs.

The legs and feet of the herons are held backward when they take flight. It has long bills. It has long thin toes in their feet. The Indian pond heron have long pointed beaks which is very helpful to grab the fish from water.

Habitat:

The Indian Pond Heron is a shallow aquatic habitat bird. Sometimes it may live at fresh, salt, natural or human made aquatic places. It prefers places like very shallow, non-flowing or slowly flowing aquatic regions. They are commonly found in the places like muddy margins of ponds, jheels, ditches, marshes, rice fields and irrigated pasture. They are also seen at the slowly flowing aquatic places like rivers, streams, lakes, tidal flats, mangrove swamps and reservoirs.

The Indian Pond heron is one of the birds which are commonly seen in the human dominated areas. They may nest in the towns and cities as well. The range of the Indian Pond heron in India is from sea level to 2150 m.

Behaviour:

Indian Pond Heron is one of the solitary foragers. These species are semi-colonial breeders. If small wetlands have a high concentration of prey, then they feed themselves in the close proximity. In the dry seasons, it may take foragers on well watered lawns or dry grassland. In the urban areas, it makes communal roosts in the trees.

Migration:

The Indian Pond heron belongs to a highly mobile family. Most of the heron species have at least partially migratory feature. These species are migrating as individuals or small groups. They are used to migration after breeding season only.

The Indian Pond Heron prefer marshy wetlands as their feeding habitat. The main food for the Indian Pond heron is crustaceans, aquatic insects, fishes, tadpoles and sometimes leeches. If the heron lives outside the wetlands, they take insects such as crickets, dragonflies, bees and amphibians as their food.

They usually prefer the edge of the pond for feeding. These Pond herons are usually stand or sit on the edge of the water place and watch the water keenly from an upright posture to find our whether the prey comes or not.

It waits patiently till the prey comes. When it sees the prey, immediately the heron will calculate the position of the prey in the water by reflection and refraction and catches the prey using its bill and pulls it out in a flash.

Apart from sitting and waiting for a long time, it uses another technique. These birds can walk slowly like less than 60 paces per minute. It is used to search the prey by walking slowly on the edge of the aquatic region and when it observes the prey motion in its monitoring area, immediately it will catch the prey by using its feet.

Places found

It is one of the most common species in India and is seen in the human settlement areas. The Indian Pond heron is one of the widespread bird and commonly seen in the various places in Indian subcontinent. Mainly it has been seen in Kolkata, Kannur, Malappuram, Palakkad, Wayanad and West Bengal. In India, we may find that more than 90 percent of the herons are on the Government land, on trees near the roadside, market, bus stop, police station, hospitals and river side areas. Other than India they are also found in the countries like Myanmar, southern Iran, Srilanka, Pakistan, Maldives, and Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Vietnam in the east, Burma and on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is also occasionally found in the Seychelles.

Mating and Nesting

The Mating season of the Indian Pond Heron may vary with the Latitude and the timing of the monsoons.

In South India and Sri Lanka, it used to nest at the month of May. But in North India, it nests at the time between May to September. It may start the breeding earlier than the given time and sometimes it will end later than the mentioned time. It used to take the courtship in the nest only.

It is used to building the nest in the isolated trees or a clump of trees or any other plants. It prefers bamboo, willows, eucalyptus and mangroves trees to build the nest. We may be able to find the pond heron's nest near or above the water.

The nest should be placed above 2 to 16 m from the ground. Few pond herons may build the nest in the ground because of not having suitable trees to build their nest. They prefer the human habitation location to build the nest and they are used to living in the same colony place for many years. The Indian Pond heron nest is very small in size which is made of twigs. Usually male pond heron will come first and start building the nest to attract the female pond herons. After getting paired, the pair continues to build the nest. The material for building the nest should be collected by the male only. The Indian Pond herons lay 3 to 7 eggs at a time. The pond heron's eggs are glossy blue or white in colour. Sometimes it lays olive brown colour eggs. The size of the egg is 38 x 28.5 mm.

Threats and conservation:

Based on the conservation status of heron population, it falls under the category of "Least Concern" only. The major cause for the threats of the herons is widespread loss, degradation of forest and wetlands. The increment of disturbance and habit degradation, over exploitation of the natural resources, harvesting of natural resources, rapid industrialization which are also the significant threats for the heron in countries like India.

Though the identification, protection and management of the Indian pond heron species are critical, various conservation techniques are carried out to save the heron species. We should maintain all sites used by the local herons. In recent days, the no extinction or endangerment for the species is recorded in IUCN.

Subspecies of Indian Pond Heron in India:

There are totally 64 recognized species in the Pond heron based on the various analysis on the heron skeleton especially skull and the DNA analysis of the herons bones and limbs.

Based on the challenges of the feeding behaviour, it has been classified as three major groups. That is
•Tiger herons and the boatbill which belong to the subfamily "Tigrisomatinae"
•Bitterns which belong to the subfamily "Botaurinae"
•Day-herons and egrets, and night-herons which belong to the subfamily "Ardeinae"

Interesting facts about Indian Pond Heron:

1. Some of the Pond heron have red legs. Among that 2 percent of the herons live in Southern and western India.
2. The Indian Pond Heron are monogamous in nature.
3. Most of the Day herons and Night herons are Colonial or Partially Colonial in nature. It depends on the circumstance, habitat and feeding behavior of the heron.
4. The Tiger herons and Bitterns are solitary nesters in nature.
5. The Indian Pond herons are very quiet in nature.
6. The Life span of the Indian Pond heron is around 25 years.
7. All 64 species of the pond heron are very similar in their body shape. But, they differ in the colour and size.
8. The pond heron is one of the natural predator birds because of its larger body.
9. The incubation period of the Indian pond heron is 1 month. Both male and female pond herons are involved in the incubation.