Black-crowned Night Heron

The black-crowned night heron is a medium-sized heron found through a large part of the world, including parts of Africa, Asia, Europe and North and South America. In Australasia it is replaced by the closely related nankeen night heron, with which it has hybridised where the two meet. Four subspecies are accepted, and the nominate one ranges over Eurasia, south to Africa and Madagascar and east to east Asia, the Philippines and Indonesia (Wikipedia, general species account).

The genus name comes from Greek words for night and raven, and the ancient word was used for a bird of ill omen, perhaps an owl (Wikipedia, general species account).