🐾 What Animal Lives Where

Where does the Gray/Purple Heron live?

Ardea cinerea has 7,828,763 records in 187 countries and territories, from 1753 to 2026. Most records come from Netherlands.

Gray/Purple Heron
Gray/Purple Heron — Alexis Lours / CC BY 4.0 · source
AnimaliaChordataAvesPelecaniformesArdeidaeArdea

When it is recorded

JFMAMJJASOND

Peak month: January. Records cluster in the months an animal is present and being looked for, so a summer peak can reflect observer effort as much as the animal.

Where it is recorded

PlaceRecordsShare
Netherlands 1,098,823
Sweden 874,616
United Kingdom 693,643
France 639,611
Denmark 623,823
Spain 504,070
Germany 406,854
Norway 377,482
India 316,260
Belgium 303,482
Taiwan 268,984
South Africa 225,250
Portugal 171,602
Italy 110,851
Japan 90,691
Czechia 67,105
South Korea 66,217
Russia 61,349
Israel 57,814
Austria 56,394
Poland 53,423
Ireland 50,298
Türkiye 48,837
China 47,858
Switzerland 42,808
Estonia 34,314
Finland 34,310
United Arab Emirates 28,312
Greece 27,766
Kenya 27,485
Bulgaria 22,750
Thailand 21,942
Sri Lanka 18,640
Hong Kong 18,523
Singapore 18,198
Ukraine 16,703
Hungary 16,691
Croatia 16,084
Serbia 15,640
Tanzania 10,882

Showing the top 40 of 187 places.

Related animals

Others in the family Ardeidae.

Great Blue/Cocoi Heron
Great Blue/Cocoi Heron
14,190,794 records
Great Egret
Great Egret
12,974,678 records
Snowy Egret
Snowy Egret
4,756,891 records
Little Egret/Western Reef-Heron
Little Egret/Western Reef-Heron
3,850,714 records
Cattle Egret
Cattle Egret
3,698,158 records
Green/Striated Heron
Green/Striated Heron
3,378,362 records
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
3,144,357 records
Little Blue Heron
Little Blue Heron
2,312,714 records
Status from the records: resident
Recorded across many years and months — an established presence. This is inferred from how many years and months the animal appears in, not from a range map — treat it as evidence, not a formal assessment.