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Indian Pond Herons are small herons with a long neck. During the breeding season, adults have a head and neck, with nuchal plumes. The front, from the chin all the way to the undertail coverts, is buffy-white to creamy. The plumes on the sides are light-brown, those on the back are very dark-brown with a violet hue. The eyes are surrounded by a whitish to light-blue skin patch. The irises are yellow. The bill has a light-blue base (half), with yellow in the middle and a black tip. The legs and feet are yellowish-grey, in some individuals also greyish-pink. Non-breeding adult and immature Indian Pond Herons have almost identical plumage (except for black tips on the primaries of immature birds). The head is grey (possibly with a yellowish lower mandible); the skin patch around the eyes is greyish-yellow. Also the bill is all-grey. Head, neck and front are buff, heavily streaked with brown. The back is greyish-brown. When not breeding, the legs and feet are yellow to turquoise-grey. In-flight they are easily recognized by their prominent, off-white upperwing plumage. When in an erect stance, a Squacco Heron's neck is about as long as the rest of the body.

Twitcher's tip

Non-breeding adult and immature Indian Pond Herons are almost indistinguishable from Non-breeding adult and immature Squacco Herons.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Indian Pond Heron is available HERE .

Indian Pond Herons populate India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the coastline of Burma and farther South, up to the Maldives. Farther West they are found on the southern coastline of Iran and on Musandam, the northern tip of the Arabian peninsula.

In Oman Indian Pond Herons are found along much of the coastline, from the Musandam peninsula, in the border region of Oman with the UAE, along the North coast and also along the East coast, as far to the South as the Salala area.

Indian Pond Herons are usually found in wetlands, and they are sometimes content with very little water (especially outside the breeding season) for temporary shelter and sources of food.

An Indian Pond Heron was first spotted by us in Oman at a few water puddles in an otherwise dry riverbed (wadi) at Qurm, near Muscat, Oman, in December 2009.