Melanistic Green Heron on Utila - Utila Black Panther Green Heron?

Today I saw a bird that drove me crazy.

It was a heron, it was small, it was dark and it didn't look like anything I'd seen before!

Was it the tiniest Little Blue Heron much smaller than the others I was seeing today? But it didn't have a dark tipped beak!

Was it a Green Heron like the one skulking in the mangroves. Comparing to the Yellow-cowned Night-Heron and Willet standing nearby showed the heron was the right size, but the colors were so wrong.

I took my photos through the binoculars, which of course is less than ideal, but it was out in the open so the pics were useful.

But reviewing Merlin App didn't help. And looking at my book A Guide to the Birds of Nicaragua - Una Guía de Aves didn't help. I know, Honduras isn't Nicaragua, but still... use what you got!

Looking at Wikipedia's list of heron species started getting me somewhere... to the Galapagos? The Lava Heron looked pretty close, but lived so far away. Having a sighting of a Galapagos endemic on Utila Honduras, would be incredible, but I didn't think it was possible. Reading the article revealed that Lava Herons are a subspecies or morph of the Striated Heron and that got me thinking.

Maybe this was a melanistic green heron? Melanistic like a melanistic jaguar is called a black panther? Green Black Panther Heron? Black Green Panther Heron?

I fired up Duck Duck Go and searched for "Melanistic Green Heron" and found a 2018 article published in the Journal of Caribbean Ornithology with my answer. "New sightings of melanistic Green Herons (Butorides virescens) in the Caribbean suggest overlooked polymorphism" revealed my Black Panther Green Heron was the real deal and only described in 2017 on Utila! How cool.

So if you're on Utila, you have a good shot of seeing the Utila Black Panther Green Heron too! What a great sighting on my last full day on the island.

Posted on Ιούλιος 25, 2022 0407 ΠΜ by jeffrey_simeon