White-eared Night Heron

Oroanassa magnifica (Ogilvie-Grant, 1899)

54–56 cmLength480 gWeight

The male is mainly blackish-brown, with a white stripe behind the eye, a white throat and green tarsi.

Most records: China, Bangladesh

Near Threatened

How to identify

Field marks

Male mainly blackish-brown, with chestnut on the side of the neck
Yellow lores, black bill and yellow-orange eyes
White stripes behind the eyes and a white throat
Brown underparts with white streaks

Male, female and young

The female resembles the male, but has less distinct head and neck markings and pale streaks on the back and wings; juveniles are browner, with buff spots.

Voice

The territorial call is a low, harsh “whoaa”, lasting about 0.3 seconds and repeated every 5–15 seconds.

Where and when it's recorded

Most records: China, Bangladesh

White-eared Night Heron has been recorded at 7 of the 8,276 birding hotspots we track, in 2 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

To protect this bird from disturbance, we don't list exact sites.

Countries and regions with the most records

China Bangladesh

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The white-eared night heron (Oroanassa magnifica) is a species of heron in the family Ardeidae. It was once thought to be only found in southern China and in northern Vietnam. However, its range is actually significantly larger as in the 2010s and 2020s has been recently discovered in Cambodia, India and Bangladesh.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia