Their breeding habitat is small wetlands in the Old World tropics from west Africa to Japan and Australia, and in South America and the Caribbean.

[3] The striated heron was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae.

[6] The striated heron is now one of three closely related species placed in the genus Butorides that was described in 1852 by the English zoologist Edward Blyth.

[11] Adults have a blue-grey back and wings, white underparts, a black cap, a dark line extends from the bill to under the eye and short yellow legs.

These birds stand still at the water's edge and wait to ambush prey, but are easier to see than many small heron species.

[13] An adult bird was once observed in a peculiar and mysterious behaviour: while on the nest, it would grab a stick in its bill and make a rapid back-and-forth motion with the head, like a sewing machine's needle.