I love egrets.
They are magnificent birds. If you've not had the experience of seeing one glide through the air, you've missed something special.
Egrets are common in many parts of the U.S., but are year-round residents here along the west coast as well as the gulf coast and southeastern seaboard. As wading birds, you'll find them at many waterways grazing in the shallows and mud banks to grab food with their long bills designed to capture prey in quick strikes.
Egrets are among the most regal of birds. Their streamlined bodies, their elegant bearing, their beautiful, languid gracefulness -- egrets are those slowly gliding, white birds you see that make most people notice and say, "Wow! What's that?"
"That" is an egret. Follow me over the fold for more.
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The picture above is a great egret. They have long, coiled necks that allow them to strike like daggers when they see prey. So do other egrets, but it's most pronounced when you see the great egret do it.
They're so pretty, let's just look at some, shall we?
Here's a great egret out looking for a snack or two with a friend.
And here's a great egret hanging out near some reeds, providing a particularly good look at that coiled neck in its resting position.
For a newbie photographer like me, one of the wonderful things about egrets is that they move . . . so . . . slowly. Plenty of time to fumble around to get a picture. They often stand completely still for long periods and then will move ever so gradually, like they're in slow motion. It's lovely to see.
And then WHAM! That neck whips down and that long bill snaps so fast you can scarcely believe it. Abracadabra & shazzam, it's LUNCH!
So this guy with the bite in his mouth is not a great egret, but a snowy egret, another common denizen in the same territories where great egrets are found. But while the great egret is a tall drink of water at 39", the snowy egret is much smaller at 24". Aside from the size difference being a dead giveaway, the great egret has a yellow bill and the snowy has a mostly black bill. The snowy also has black legs and yellow feet, while the great egret has black legs and black feet.
Yellow feet, black feet . . . whatever.
For comparison, here's a great egret hanging in the reeds, yellow bill bright . . .
and here's a snowy egret poking in the mud looking for food.
And silly as it is to say, great egrets seem to have a calm and passive expression, while snowy egrets often look kind of pissed. I think it's because they get hassled pretty often. If you've been around egrets much, you've probably seen them get taunted and dive-bombed by red-winged blackbirds and Northern mockingbirds. Doesn't the guy above look pissed to you? Look at that scowl.
And now he's squawking about it, loudly, in this next photo (that's a black-necked stilt in the background).
It was quite windy on this particular day, and this photo gives a good sense of what those light and wispy feathers are like on the snowy egret.
And as you can see below, even egrets can have bad hair days.
I should mention two other members of the egret family -- the cattle egret and the reddish egret. The cattle egret is a year-round resident in Florida and the southern edges of the Gulf states, while the reddish egret is uncommon in the U.S. except in a few narrow areas.
If you've come this far into looking at these Dawn Chorus pics, you're either a birder or a nature-lover. Whatever you are, I hope you'll tell the other folks looking here and reading the comments. Do you have any egrets where you live? Or other birds you enjoy seeing? Backyard birds? Please share!
Don't be shy. Bird folks LOVE to talk birds and help others ID birds they don't know. So please jump in! You don't need a photo . . . just say "I saw this bird that . . ."
And here's one last snowy egret photo to end this picture fest. This is my favorite egret image I've gotten so far because it captures both the shadow and the reflection in the water. Enjoy and share your thoughts!