Photo ID for bird fishing for crawdads, Northwest Arkansas (1 Viewer)

[serenejl19]

Sorry for the poor photo quality (this is a screenshot taken from a cell phone video). Would still appreciate any insights into IDing this bird. It was fishing for crawdads in a creek by a wooded area (you can kind of see the crawdad in its mouth). The location is Northwest Arkansas. The feathers were brownish in color, very long thin legs, and a fairly long beak. Thank you so much in advance for your comments/suggestions.

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron

 

[Butty]

Could you give the date, please? Thanks.
The relatively long legs and (what appears to be) narrow whitish edges to the greater coverts suggest immature yellow-crowned night heron. It would help ID if you could upload the video somewhere and post a link.

 

[nartreb]

Immature night heron. Photo not really good enough to be confident, but as Butty says, this bird seems to be relatively long-legged and it looks like we can see pale edges on the wing feathers (the greater overwing coverts, to be precise), so probably yellow-crowned. The two species also differ subtly in beak shape and color, but that's extra hard to judge with the beak open, even with a better photo.

 

[KC Foggin]

Night Heron it is.

Hi there Serene and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum
We're glad you found us and please join in wherever you like.

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

My Black-crowned was based on what I thought of the beak shape; looking again I wish to transfer to the Yellow-crowned camp.