Lava Heron – Butorides sundevalli

Paul Demkovich

We spent 8 days in the Galápagos Islands traveling to 10 islands looking for the specialty birds on each. We accessed each island with an inflatable panga boat (the local term for a zodiac). Our first excursion was to North Seymour Island, where there was a steep climb up a trail to the top of a cliff immediately after the landing. Just a few feet away at the top of the cliff was this Lava Heron, sitting stoically. We saw other Lava Herons during our trip, but this was the first bird at our first landing.

This species is not included in the Great Bird Pics species list. I found on Wikipedia: “It is considered by some authorities — including the American Ornithological Society and BirdLife International — to be a subspecies (or even just a colour morph) of the striated heron (B. striata), and was formerly “lumped” with this species and the green heron (B. virescens) as the green-backed heron.” Based on this, I’ve listed it here as a Striated Heron.