- Animals
- ›Chordates
- ›Vertebrates
- ›Birds
- ›Pelicans, Herons, Ibises, and Allies
- ›Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns
- ›Typical Herons and Egrets
- ›Ardea

On eBird ↗
Purple Heron
Live sightings near you, the range map, bar charts of when it is seen, and Macaulay Library photos and recordings.
Purple Heron
Ardea purpurea
The purple heron (Ardea purpurea) is a wide ranging species of wading bird in the heron family, Ardeidae. The scientific name comes from Latin ardea "heron", and purpureus, "coloured purple". It breeds in Africa, central and southern Europe, and southern and eastern Asia. The Western Palearctic populations migrate between breeding and wintering habitats whereas the African and tropical-Asian populations are primarily sedentary, except for occasional dispersive movements.
Listen
Looking for field recordings…
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Ardea purpurea in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 4951.