Anhinga
Anhinga anhinga

Family | Anhingas |
---|---|
Habitat | Cypress swamps, rivers, wooded ponds. Mostly on quiet and sheltered waters, such as freshwater marshes, slow-moving rivers through cypress swamps, inlets and lagoons lined with mangroves, lakes with standing dead trees. |
Photo Gallery
Feeding Behavior
Hunts for fish while swimming underwater or at surface. Not usually a fast swimmer, mostly waits for fish to come near, then impales them with lightning-fast thrust of long, pointed bill. Structure of neck is specially adapted for this kind of rapid thrust. Fish often tossed in air, then swallowed headfirst.
Eggs
4, sometimes 2-5. Whitish to pale blue, becoming nest-stained. Incubation is by both sexes, 25-29 days. Young: both parents feed young. After age of about 2 weeks, if young are disturbed, they will jump out of nest into water; at least sometimes, they are able to climb back up to nest. Young climb in nest tree using feet and bill. Age at first flight unknown.
Young
both parents feed young. After age of about 2 weeks, if young are disturbed, they will jump out of nest into water; at least sometimes, they are able to climb back up to nest. Young climb in nest tree using feet and bill. Age at first flight unknown.
Diet
Mostly fish. Feeds primarily on "rough" fish of little value to humans, including catfish, mullet, pickerel, sucker, gizzard shad. Also aquatic insects, crayfish, shrimp, sometimes snakes, baby alligators, small turtles.
Nesting
Sometimes nests in isolated pairs, usually in groups, in mixed colonies with herons, ibises, cormorants. Male chooses site in colony and displays there to attract mate. Displays include waving wings, raising tail up over back, pointing bill skyward and then bowing deeply. Nest: built mostly by female, with material supplied by male. A platform of sticks, often lined with green leaves. Sometimes takes over an occupied nest of heron or egret.
Illustration © David Allen Sibley.
Learn more about these drawings.
Text © Kenn Kaufman, adapted from
Lives of North American Birds
Download Our Bird Guide App
Migration
Withdraws from northern breeding areas in winter. Many go to Mexico, migrating around Gulf of Mexico, with migrant flocks seen along Texas coast in spring and fall. Some remain all winter in south, especially peninsular Florida. Lone strays occasionally wander far to north during warmer months.
See a fully interactive migration map for this species on the Bird Migration Explorer.
Learn moreSongs and Calls
Low grunts like those of cormorants.Learn more about this sound collection.
How Climate Change Will Reshape the Range of the Anhinga
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Climate threats facing the Anhinga
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.