Tricolored Heron (Egretta Tricolor) Allen T

Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor) Allen T. Chartier Status: Casual (MBRC) and one each from Mackinac and Marquette counties (MBRC 2009).

In Ohio, only a single “possible” nesting was recorded from West Sister Island in Lake Erie in 1979 (Peterjohn and Rice 1991). A single individual carrying nesting materials to a Cattle Egret colony near Gibson Lake, southern Indiana in 1996 is the only record from that state. This colony was abandoned in early June of that year (Castrale et al. 1998). No breeding evidence during either atlas period was obtained from Michigan, and indeed Tricolored Herons Florida. 1/8//2009. © Jerry Jourdan are absent as a breeding species in the entire region making this a very unlikely addition to The coast loving Tricolored Heron is a the breeding avifauna of Michigan any time in relatively new addition to Michigan’s avifauna the foreseeable future. with the first confirmed record from Monroe County on 8 May 1965 (Payne 1983). The breeding range extends primarily on the immediate coastline of extreme southern Texas and southern Louisiana east to Florida, and irregularly along the Atlantic coast north to southern Maine (Frederick 1997). As with other “southern” herons, the Tricolored Heron is prone to post-breeding wandering well north of its normal range in spring and summer.

Between 1965-2007 the species has been less than annual in Michigan, with a total of 45 records (57 individuals), seven (12 individuals) during the MBBA I period and seven (7 individuals) during the MBBA II period. The early 1980s was a period of an increased number of records. Most Tricolored Herons in Michigan have been recorded from spring (26) and summer (16) with the earliest being 13 April 2006 from Marquette County and the latest 31 August 1988 from Ottawa County. The southeastern Lower Peninsula, particularly Monroe County, accounts for the majority of records (24), followed by a single county (10 records from Bay County) in the Saginaw Bay area. There have also been four records from the Upper Peninsula, two from Chippewa County

Castrale, J.S., E.M. Hopkins, and C.E. Keller. 1998. Atlas of Breeding Birds of Indiana. Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife, Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program. Indianapolis, IN. Frederick, P.C. 1997. Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor). In The Birds of North America, No. 306 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA. Michigan Bird Records Committee (MBRC) website. Accessed 4 January 2009. Payne, R.B. 1983. A Distributional Checklist of the Birds of Michigan. MP 164. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. Ann Arbor, MI. Peterjohn, B.G., and D.L. Rice. 1991. The Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas. Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Columbus, OH.

Suggested Citation

Chartier, A.T. 2010. Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor). In Chartier, A.T., J.J. Baldy, and J.M. Brenneman (eds.). 2010. The Second Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas. Kalamazoo Nature Center. Kalamazoo, MI. Accessed online at: .