How to Tell a Great Egret from a Snowy Egret (and others)

If you have trouble distinguishing between heron species, you are not alone! It helps though, if two of the species happen to be foraging next to each other. That happened today at Willow Lake on the campus of CSU Stanislaus. The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) and Great Egret (Ardea alba) are similar in shape and coloration, but the details are definitely different. The Great Egret is larger, has a yellow bill, and black legs and feet. The Snowy Egret is smaller, has a black bill, has green legs and yellow feet. Cattle Egrets (the picture below is from Honolulu in Hawaii) are also white, but combine a yellow bill with yellow legs, and in breeding season, they have some buff-colored feathers on their head and back. The Great and Snowy Egrets are native to North America. The Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis) arrived in the Americas in the late 1800s and spread to North America in the late 1940s. They are common now all the way north into Canada.

Also, as can be seen below, Great Egrets get the joke quicker than a Snowy Egret!