Custer, T. W., and Davis, W. E. Jr., 1982, Nesting by one-year-old black-crowned night
herons on Hope Island, Rhode Island: The Auk, v. 99, no. 4, p. 784-786.

Abstract:

There have been few consistent reports concerning the frequency and success of nesting
attempts by  immature night herons of the genus Nycticorax . One-year-old
Black-crowned Night Herons (Nycticonax  nyctiocrax ) mated to 2-yr-old or older birds
built nests and incubated eggs in the wild (Gross 1923). In a captive  colony, many
1-yr-old pairs of night herons courted and built nests, and one pair successfully raised
four young  (Noble and Wurm 1942). One pair of 1-yr-old night herons laid eggs but did
not produce young in a captive  colony at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. In contrast,
in a 3-yr study of a colony of about 350 Black-crowned  Night Heron pairs on Long
Island, New York, no 1-yr-old breeders were observed (Allen and Mangels 1940).

Keywords:

USA, Rhode-Island, Hope-I., breeding, juveniles, nesting, Nycticorax-nycticorax