Heron

The heron is named twice in the Torah, both times in the lists of birds Israel may not eat. It appears as a category — "the heron after its kind" — alongside other long-legged or marsh-dwelling birds.

In the Levitical Bird List

The Levitical catalog of forbidden birds runs through eagles, vultures, kites, ravens, ostriches, hawks, owls, the pelican, the swan, and so on, and reaches the heron near the end: "and the stork, the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat" (Lev 11:19). The phrase "after its kind" extends the prohibition to the whole heron family rather than to a single species — every bird that counts as a heron is included.

Repeated in Deuteronomy

The Deuteronomic restatement of the dietary law preserves the same listing with one word's difference in flow: "and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat" (Deut 14:18). The pairing — stork, heron-with-kinds, hoopoe, bat — is identical, and the "after its kind" formula remains. The repetition treats the heron as a fixed unclean category for the second-generation hearers entering the land.