Great Egret - Ardea alba

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Great Egret - Ardea alba

[Public Domain] 21 Mar 2004 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Species
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Only yesterday I uploaded a photo of this same species in its classic natural pose with the neck curved into an ‘s’, looking into the water for fish. There is something about Egrets I just love to look at. The plumage and the graceful long neck are remarkable and the milk white feathers make them look rather angelic.

I had a friend take me out to a “hot spot” for water birds yesterday and got some good shots, but returned today by myself to take my time and really stalk these birds, pun intended. This time I crawled through the scrub to sneak up on them and get much closer. As I got closer and closer to the heart of the activity I saw this guy up a tree looking around cautiously.

Its a pity that branch obscures the view of the legs and bisects the photo somewhat, but showing the stag is a good honest representation of the habitat, and the clarity of the image turned out so much better than the other that I decided to include this as an alternative photo for the Intermediate Egret.

I was mesmerised by this species today as I watched about twenty individuals circling the river for fish. Before they dive, they do a “double take” that looks like a half spin and then then shoot downwards and stop at the last minute with a big swoop of both wings. Then, gracefully they dip their beak in and pull out a fish. This was so regular that the “double take” became the cue for me to focus and follow and I turned out a few good photos of the egrets complete with fresh fish!

NOTE : The bird is actually a Great Egret and not Intermediate as first thought. Notes by Matthew Herring : “The egret photo is definitely not an Intermediate, rather a Great Egret. The egrets can be tricky and it’s a good challenge to ID them. Greats are by far the most common in our area. We also get a few Intermediate Egrets, an occasional Little Egret and Cattle Egrets are common in some places, usually out in paddocks, as opposed to wetlands. The only likely

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