William E. Davis Jr. Thomas W. Custer 1982 <p>There have been few consistent reports concerning the frequency and success of nesting attempts by immature night herons of the genus <i>Nycticorax</i>. One- year-old Black-crowned Night Herons (<i>Nycticorax</i> <i>nycticorax</i>) mated to 2-yr-old or older birds built nests and incubated eggs in the wild (Gross 1923). In a captive colony, many 1-yr-old pairs of night herons courted and built nests, and one pair successfully raised four young (Noble and Wurm 1942). One pair of 1-yr-old night herons laid eggs but did not produce young in a captive colony at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (H. Ohlendorf pers. comm.). Breeding among 1-yr-old birds of the closely related Nankeen Night Heron (<i>Nycticorax caledonicus</i>) is apparently common (Braithwaite and Clayton 1976). In contrast, in a 3-yr study of a colony of about 350 Black-crowned Night Heron pairs on Long Island, New York, no 1-yr-old breeders were observed (Allen and Mangels 1940)</p> application/pdf en American Ornithological Society Nesting by one-year-old black-crowned night herons on Hope Island, Rhode Island article