Species: Nycticorax nycticorax

H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - BREEDS: Washington, southern Idaho, Saskatchewan, Michigan, and Nova Scotia south to southern South America, including Antilles; also Hawaii (Niihau to Hawaii). See Spendelow and Patton (1988) for information on distribution and abundance of coastal U.S. breeding populations (most coastal breeders are along Gulf Coast and Atlantic coast north of Florida). NORTHERN WINTER: north to Oregon, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, lower Ohio Valley, Gulf Coast, and southern New England. In the U.S., the highest winter densities occur in the vicinity of inland wildlife refuges near the California-Oregon border, along the northern California coast (Humboldt Bay), in the San Joaquin Valley of California, along the lower Colorado River, near Galveston Bay in Texas, and along the coast near Jacksonville, Florida (Root 1988). Also occurs in the Old World and on other Pacific islands.