SOUTHEASTERN CARIBBEAN BIRDS
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Trinidad & Tobago Field Naturalists' Club    Southeastern Caribbean Bird Alert    Trinidad & Tobago Rare Bird Committee

ST. VINCENT

Striated Heron (Butorides striatus)
Subadult male specimen (American Museum of Natural History #325358) taken at Calliagna, south coast, St. Vincent, 18 July 1924. Photo © by Floyd Hayes. First and only record for St. Vincent and the West Indies. The specimen label states, "Similar bird (probably the ?) seen same place 2 days later. Immature secured July 21. Collected by Gerald H. Thayer. Brown-necked Butorides common in neighborhood." Although the white spots visible at the tips of a few wing feathers indicate immaturity, the neck has clearly attained adult coloration. The obviously grey neck, which distinguishes Striated Heron from the rufous-necked Green Heron (B. virescens), was scored as 3 on a scale of 1-9 (to view voucher specimens, click here) by Robert P. Payne (1974. Species limits and variation of the New World Green Herons Butorides virescens and Striated Herons B. striatus. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club 94:81-88). This specimen record was first published by James Bond (1964. Ninth Supplement to the Check-list of Birds of the West Indies (1956). Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia).