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Cattle Egret immature
Bubulcus ibis
16.1889, -88.2326
Field Notes
Description:
The cattle egret is a small white heron about 19-21 inches in length with a wingspan of about three feet. It often looks like it is hunched over. It has short legs and a thick neck compared to other species of egrets. Adults have dull yellow or orange bills and dull orange legs. Immature cattle egrets have black legs and bills. During breeding season it has a brownish crown and chest and its eyes, legs and bill are red.
Habitat:
Tom Owens Caye on Belize Barrier Reef.
Notes:
Cattle Egrets are native to Africa but somehow reached northeastern South America in 1877. They continued to spread, arriving in the United States in 1941 and nesting there by 1953. In the next 50 years they became one of the most abundant of the North American herons, showing up as far north as Alaska and Newfoundland.
Cattle Egrets follow large animals or machines and eat invertebrates stirred up from the ground. They will fly toward smoke from long distances away, to catch insects fleeing a fire.
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