The Black-crowned Night-heron is a fairly cosmopolitan bird occurring in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. There are 4 subspecies with the nominate occurring in the Old World, N.n. hoactli in North and most of South America, N.n. obscurus in Chile and Argentina and N.n. falklandicus in the Falkland Islands.

They feed on a wide variety of prey including fish, frogs, snakes, lizards, insects, shrimps, rodents, bats and birds. Although they can be active during the day they are mainly crepuscular and, as the name suggests, nocturnal.

There are recordings on xeno-canto, a distribution map from NatureServe and additional information available via Avibase.