Little Heron

The little heron is a small heron, about 44 cm tall, mostly sedentary and found at both fresh and salt water across the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia. It was formerly counted as the same species as the striated heron; a 2023 study found the striated heron paraphyletic, so twenty subspecies were moved to the little heron, leaving the striated heron a South American species (Wikipedia, general species account).

Nationally Least Concern (Sri Lanka National Red List 2012, listed as the Striated Heron, Butorides striata, its name before the split).