squacco

/ ˈskwækəʊ /

noun

1. a S European heron, Ardeola ralloides, with a short thick neck and a buff-coloured plumage with white wings

Word History and Origins

Origin of squacco¹

C17: Italian dialect

Example Sentences

For example, we have the most important pelican colony there and hundreds of Squacco Herons, as well as otters and the endangered European mink.

From Scientific American

Squacco, skwak′ō, n. a small crested African heron.

From Project Gutenberg

Besides the Common and Purple Herons, the Buff-backed, Squacco, and Night Herons, Egrets, Spoon-bills, and Glossy Ibis are also found, and several of one kind or the other can generally be descried on the open marsh—the first-named often perched on the backs of the cattle or wild-bred ponies of the marisma, ridding them of the ticks and "warbles," or embryo gadflies which burrow in the poor brutes' hides.

From Project Gutenberg

Sundry Stilts, Egrets, and four Squacco Herons stalked sedately in the shallows—one of the latter presently perching on a broken bulrush within ten yards of the boat.

From Project Gutenberg

Both in the neighbourhood of Almonte and in certain marshy regions of vast cane-brake and wooded swamp on the Estremenian border, there survive unknown and unmolested colonies of these graceful creatures, where for many a year to come the Egrets, Buff-backed and Squacco Herons, the Night-Heron and Little Bittern, Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis and other "rare birds" may yet find a sanctuary protected by natural fastnesses, and by legions of leeches and mosquitoes that render human life well nigh intolerable.

From Project Gutenberg