What is "heron"

Heron \Her"on\, n. [OE. heiroun, heroun, heron, hern, OF. hairon, F. h['e]ron, OHG. heigir; cf. Icel. hegri, Dan. heire, Sw. h["a]ger, and also G. h["a]her jay, jackdaw, OHG. hehara, higere, woodpecker, magpie, D. reiger heron, G. reiher, AS. hr[=a]gra. Cf. Aigret, Egret.] (Zo["o]l.) Any wading bird of the genus Ardea and allied genera, of the family Ardeid[ae]. The herons have a long, sharp bill, and long legs and toes, with the claw of the middle toe toothed. The common European heron ( Ardea cinerea) is remarkable for its directly ascending flight, and was formerly hunted with the larger falcons.

Note: There are several common American species; as, the great blue heron ( Ardea herodias); the little blue ( Ardea c[oe]rulea); the green ( Ardea virescens); the snowy ( Ardea candidissima); the night heron or qua-bird ( Nycticorax nycticorax). The plumed herons are called egrets.

Heron's bill (Bot.), a plant of the genus Erodium; -- so called from the fancied resemblance of the fruit to the head and beak of the heron.

c.1300, from Old French hairon (12c.), earlier hairo (11c., Modern French héron), from Frankish *haigiro or some other Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *hraigran (cognates: Old High German heigaro "heron," German Reiher, Dutch reiger, Old Norse hegri), from PIE *qriq-, perhaps imitative of its cry (compare Old Church Slavonic kriku "cry, scream," Lithuanian kryksti "to shriek"). Old English cognate hraga did not survive into Middle English.

n. A long-legged, long-necked wading bird of the family Ardeidae.

A heron is a type of wading bird.

Heron may also refer to:

Héron is a Walloon municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège and the Huy-Ware district.

The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 64 recognised species, some of which are referred to as " egrets" or " bitterns" rather than herons. Members of the genera Botaurus and Ixobrychus are referred to as "bitterns", and, together with the zigzag heron or zigzag bittern in the monotypic genus Zebrilus, form a monophyletic group within the Ardeidae. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from the herons, and tend to be named differently because they are mainly white or have decorative plumes. Although egrets have the same build as herons, they tend to be smaller.

The classification of the individual heron/egret species is fraught with difficulty, and there is still no clear consensus about the correct placement of many species into either of the two major genera, Ardea and Egretta. Similarly, the relationship of the genera in the family is not completely resolved. However, one species formerly considered to constitute a separate monotypic family Cochlearidae, the boat-billed heron, is now regarded as a member of the Ardeidae.

Although herons resemble birds in some other families, such as the storks, ibises, spoonbills and cranes, they differ from these in flying with their necks retracted, not outstretched. They are also one of the bird groups that have powder down. Some members of this group nest colonially in trees, while others, notably the bitterns, use reed beds.

The Heron was a Formula Junior racing car designed by Les Redmond and Syd (aka Jim or Dig) Diggory. It was fitted with a Ford 105E engine.

Heron is a surname originating in England and Ireland during the Middle Ages.

Heron is a distributed streaming processing engine developed at Twitter. According to the creators at Twitter, the scale and diversity of Twitter data has increased, and Heron is a real-time analytics platform to process streaming. It was introduced at the SIGMOD 2015.

The Heron Dinghy is a dinghy designed by Jack Holt of the United Kingdom as the Yachting World Cartopper (YW Cartopper). The Heron dinghy was designed to be built by a home handyman out of marine ply over a timber frame, but can now also be constructed from marine ply using a stitch and glue technique or from Fibreglass. Modern dinghies will usually have built in buoyancy tanks, older craft will have bags or retrofitted tanks.

Since about 1980 boats have been increasingly made of Fibreglass, although the Australian association has approved stitch and glue construction .

The Heron is sailed in the UK and Australia and New Zealand, with a few others spread around the world. UK class rules vary slightly from the Australian Rules. In the UK a spinnaker is permitted and a larger genoa can be used. The UK also permits the use of different rudder shapes and a Bermudan Mast. Other more minor differences exist between the rules. The Heron cartop dinghy was popular in Ireland from the late 1950s until the arrival of the Mirror which was lighter, easier to build, and had built in buoyancy.

They are mainly used as adult/child racing dinghies. For state and national titles the Olympic triangle course is often used.

The Heron has a Portsmouth Yardstick of 1346 when sailed single handed. In the US Sailing scheme it has a D-PN of 120.0. The Heron has been a popular entry-level sailing dinghy, due largely to its high level of stability. The craft design features hard chines. These are sharp angles between the sides and bottom of the hull, giving it great stability even in rough weather conditions. This makes it easier for a relative novice to avoid capsizing. A round-hulled craft requires a lot more skill to keep upright.

The stability of Herons was demonstrated in South Australia on 26 January 1995. Forty-four yachts competing in a state title heat being held at the Largs Bay Sailing Club were struck by a violent thunder squall that lashed and wreaked widespread destruction across the city of Adelaide and surrounding districts. Winds speeds were reported in excess of sixty knots. Although almost all yachts capsized immediately, two of the fleet remained upright and were surfed into shore, having had their masts broken before capsize could occur. 'Hot Eclipse' (sail no. 9299, skipper Gareth Eastwood) was at a point adjacent the windward jibe buoy around two kilometers offshore when the gale struck. It was manhandled to shore atop waves around four meters high, with the forward crew leaning across the front deck holding the sails down. The wild ride to safety lasted about an hour. Few small sailing dinghy designs could have managed this.

Over 10,200 Heron sail numbers have been issued since the design first appeared in the late 1950s. The very first Heron, No 1 Flook still exists and is now owned by the National Maritime Museum Cornwall

Heron is a small lunar impact crater that lies on the far side of the Moon, less than 20 kilometers from the equator. It lies between the slightly larger crater Ctesibius just to the west and Soddy a little farther to the east. Almost directly to the north is the prominent crater King.

This formation is an undistinguished, circular crater. The interior floor is relatively flat and featureless. There is a tiny craterlet along the eastern rim that has a slightly higher albedo than the remainder of the crater.

This crater is also called Hero in some references. Its name comes from Heron (or Hero) of Alexandria.