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Bird

Little Blue Heron

Egretta caerulea

Lives in Alabama all year and nests here. Found in all 67 counties, across 14 habitats.

Here
All year
Nesting
Nests here
Range
All 67 counties
Habitats
14

At a glance

Group
Birds
Here
All year
Nesting
Nests here
Range
All 67 counties
Habitats
14
Habitat models
Summer, Winter

Where it lives

The places its habitat model includes. It is not found everywhere a habitat occurs.

Habitats in Alabama 14

Each habitat page lists the plants and wildlife also found there.

1 of 14

Freshwater marshes

Georgia pond and emergent wetland
SummerWinterSouthern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp - Okefenokee Nupea ModifierRegional / representative. Shown: Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Georgia; representative pond ecosystem, a neighboring state.Georgia pond and emergent wetland, Robert 'Bob' Hynes, 1997. Public domain. Source record.

Ponds, lakes and their shores

Georgia pond and emergent wetland
SummerWinterOpen Water (Fresh)Regional / representative. Shown: Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Georgia; representative pond ecosystem, a neighboring state.Georgia pond and emergent wetland, Robert 'Bob' Hynes, 1997. Public domain. Source record.

Swamps

Loblolly bay in a coastal swamp
SummerWinterSouthern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp - Okefenokee Taxodium Modifier; Southern Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall; East Gulf Coastal Plain Tidal Wooded Swamp; Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp; Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Cypress Dome; Southern Piedmont/Ridge and Valley Upland Depression SwampRegional / representative. Shown: Southern coastal swamps, Florida to Virginia; state not identified, a neighboring state.Loblolly bay in a coastal swamp, Marian Ellis Rowan, 1901. Public domain. Source record.

Coastal dunes and beaches

Open sand of beaches, dunes and the hollows between them.

SummerWinterUnconsolidated Shore (Beach/Dune); Florida Panhandle Beach Vegetation; East Gulf Coastal Plain Dune and Coastal Grassland; Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain Interdunal Wetland

Coastal Plain hammocks

Dense, evergreen groves of live oak, magnolia and other hardwoods in the southern Coastal Plain, from dry oak domes to wet hydric hammocks and south Florida's tropical hammocks; salt-shaped maritime hammocks are maritime forests.

SummerWinterSouthern Coastal Plain Hydric Hammock

Coastal Plain seepage bogs

Open, wet, seepage-fed bogs of the Coastal Plain and Sandhills, often with pitcher plants.

SummerWinterSouthern Coastal Plain Herbaceous Seepage Bog

Disturbed and introduced wetlands

Wet ground taken over by weedy or introduced plants after disturbance, such as common reed, Chinese tallow or tamarisk stands; the upland counterpart is roadsides, fields and disturbed ground.

SummerWinter

Pine savannas

Open, fire-kept longleaf pine stands over grasses and wildflowers on wet to moist sandy soil.

WinterEast Gulf Coastal Plain Savanna and Wet Prairie

Salt and brackish marshes

Coastal marshes flooded by salty or brackish tides.

SummerWinterMississippi Sound Salt and Brackish Tidal Marsh

Sounds, bays and tidal flats

Salt and brackish open water of sounds, bays and estuaries, with the mud and sand flats and seagrass beds that tides cover and uncover; the vegetated marsh is salt and brackish marshes.

SummerWinterOpen Water (Brackish/Salt)

Streams, rivers and their banks

Flowing water and its banks, bars and rocky shoals.

SummerWinterCumberland Riverscour

Prairies and grasslands

Grand Prairie, Coosa Valley Prairies, Floyd County
WinterOnly within 250 m of water.East Gulf Coastal Plain Black Belt Calcareous Prairie and Woodland - Herbaceous Modifier; East Gulf Coastal Plain Jackson Prairie and WoodlandLimestone prairie. Shown: Grand Prairie, Coosa Valley Prairies, Floyd County, Georgia, a neighboring state.Grand Prairie, Coosa Valley Prairies, Floyd County, Alan M. Cressler / U.S. Geological Survey, undated. Public domain. Source record.

Hardwood and oak flatwoods

Flat, poorly drained uplands and terraces with oaks, sweetgum and sometimes loblolly pine, wet in winter and dry in summer, but neither a floodplain nor a swamp.

WinterOnly within 250 m of water.East Gulf Coastal Plain Jackson Plain Dry Flatwoods - Open Understory Modifier

Pine flatwoods

Flat, sandy Coastal Plain pine woodlands, wetter than sandhills and denser than savannas.

WinterOnly within 250 m of water.East Gulf Coastal Plain Near-Coast Pine Flatwoods - Open Understory Modifier
Other habitats in its models (44)

Land cover, or classes with no habitat page in Alabama.

  • Open Water (Aquaculture) Summer and winter.
  • Unconsolidated Shore (Lake/River/Pond) Summer and winter.
  • Unconsolidated Shore Summer and winter.
  • Southeast Florida Beach Winter.
  • South Florida Shell Hash Beach Winter.
  • Southwest Florida Beach Winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Xeric River Dune Summer and winter.
  • Florida Dry Prairie Winter, only within 250 m of water.
  • Southwest Florida Dune and Coastal Grassland Winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Central Salt and Brackish Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Indian River Lagoon Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Embayed Region Tidal Salt and Brackish Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Northern Tidal Salt Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Florida Big Bend Salt-Brackish Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Southern Coastal Plain Nonriverine Basin Swamp - Okefenokee Pine Modifier Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Clay-Based Carolina Bay Herbaceous Wetland Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Peatland Pocosin Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Streamhead Seepage Swamp - Pocosin - and Baygall Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Large Natural Lakeshore Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Southern Tidal Wooded Swamp Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Everglades Sawgrass Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Floridian Highlands Freshwater Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Embayed Region Tidal Freshwater Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Central Florida Herbaceous Seep Summer and winter.
  • Florida Big Bend Fresh-Oligohaline Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Northern Fresh and Oligohaline Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Northern Tidal Wooded Swamp Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Mangrove Swamp Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Bayhead Swamp Summer and winter.
  • Northern Atlantic Coastal Plain Basin Swamp and Wet Hardwood Forest Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Central Fresh-Oligohaline Tidal Marsh Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Nonriverine Swamp and Wet Hardwood Forest - Taxodium/Nyssa Modifier Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Clay-Based Carolina Bay Forested Wetland Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Dwarf Cypress Savanna Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Wet Marl Prairie Winter.
  • Lower Mississippi River Bottomland Depressions - Forest Modifier Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Cypress Dome Summer and winter.
  • Central Florida Herbaceous Pondshore Summer and winter.
  • East Gulf Coastal Plain Southern Depression Pondshore Summer and winter.
  • Atlantic Coastal Plain Depression Pondshore Summer and winter.
  • South Florida Freshwater Slough and Gator Hole Summer and winter.
  • East Gulf Coastal Plain Large River Floodplain Forest - Herbaceous Modifier Summer and winter.
  • Mississippi River Low Floodplain (Bottomland) Forest Winter.
  • Mississippi River Floodplain and Riparian Forest Winter.

All habitats

Seasons in Alabama

  • Year-round: nests here, in 5 of 67 counties.
  • Migratory: does not nest here, in 37 of 67 counties.
  • Summer: nests here, in 46 of 67 counties.

Also found in this habitat

Plants 352

Plants named in NatureServe descriptions of these habitats that grow in Alabama. Shared habitat, not food.

Wildlife 251

Other animals whose habitat models include the same habitats in Alabama. Not sighting records.

NatureServe Explorer, CC BY 4.0. USGS Gap Analysis Project habitat models.

Sources