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!

Dabbling in the Mud: Snowy Egret on the Tuolumne River

I was walking the Tuolumne River the other morning, and saw a Snowy Egret searching for food in the shallows. They have an interesting way of procuring food, shaking their feet in the mud to stir up crustaceans, fish, and insects.


I don't see them all that often on the Tuolumne River where I walk most mornings, only three times so far. They are beautiful graceful creatures who were almost driven to extinction early in the last century. Their wispy feathers that develop in the breeding season were once worth their weight in gold, which made them a huge target for hunters. The fight for their protection was one of the earliest environmental battles in U.S. history. It's nice that they made it.

I didn't get any closer to the bird on the Tuolumne, but there is a Snowy Egret that hangs out at Willow Pond on the campus of CSU Stanislaus, and I got a few closeups last week (it's a bit more acclimated to people than the ones I see in the wild).

Snowy Egrets Foraging at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge

One of the most beautiful birds to be found in our area (and one of my favorite blog subjects) is the Snowy Egret (Egretta thula). There is one that hangs outside my office at CSU Stanislaus and which is accustomed enough to humans to allow some fairly close shots.

They are a bit more cautious at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge. They tend to fly off when our car approaches them on the auto-tour, but this pair didn't seem to care too much. It was a pretty quiet day, with few people wanting to put up with the windy conditions (that didn't stop us, of course).

These egrets are lucky to still exist. For a time a century ago, their feathers were worth twice as much as gold, ounce for ounce. They were used in hats and fashion ensembles. They were almost eradicated for this rather stupid reason (beavers would probably sympathize). Efforts to protect the species early in the 1900s were among the first of conservation laws in the United States.

Snowy Egret on the CSU Stanislaus Campus

What a treat last night! I'm back to work teaching classes, including an evening course at CSU Stanislaus. There's a large pond behind my office that has offered shelter to a surprising number of species, and some of them are acclimated enough to humans that they allow themselves to be photographed in relatively close quarters. I took these shots from a well-trafficked sidewalk along the pond edge. I had three uniquely beautiful birds in one spot, a Great Egret, a Snowy Egret, and a Black-crowned Night Heron (below).

The picture above may well be the Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) that has appeared previously on this blog, but I've never caught this pose with the head feathers on alert. It's one of my favorite pics in recent months.

Snowy Egrets are smaller than the Great Egrets, as can be seen below. The Green Heron is on the fence. It will probably be featured in the next post.

A Bird Worth Its Weight in Gold: Snowy Egret at CSU Stanislaus

Fashion can be a horrible thing. Actually it kind of always is a horrible thing, especially as it applies to animals. Beavers were practically eradicated across the western United States because Europe decided beaver hats were fashionable. Ivory became fashionable so elephants have to die. And the Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) had to go nearly extinct because someone decided their feathers were valuable in hats a century ago. For a time, the feathers of the Snowy Egret were worth $32 per ounce, a price higher than gold in that era. It just about doomed the species.

Luckily a few visionary people began to work to limit the slaughter, and the egret populations recovered. They've adapted to human wetlands in some cases, such as the individual in today's picture. It does quite well foraging in the pond outside my office at CSU Stanislaus, where I teach a class. It's probably the same bird I've photographed before, given the nearly tame demeanor (it doesn't care all that much when I show up with a camera).

I'm thankful that the value of the bird today is aesthetic, not monetary.

Snowy Egrets at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge

Thousands of Sandhill Cranes are already in residence, but tens of thousands of Ross's Geese and Snow Geese have yet to arrive. So the Merced National Wildlife Refuge doesn't feel particularly crowded at the moment. As a result, the year-round denizens still stand out a bit, especially if they are pure white. The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) is one of them.

The Snowy Egret is one of the most elegant and graceful birds to be seen in our area. Their beautiful delicate feathers were once worth more than their weight in gold, and that almost led to their extinction a century ago. They were one of the first birds to receive protected status back in a time when such things simply weren't done (the wild Turkey was another early benificiary of protection after being hunted to near-extinction).

When the other migratory birds arrive in a few weeks, the egrets will still be seen wandering alone through thunderous flocks of geese and cranes. They seem pretty unflappable, as I've seen tens of thousands of geese panic and take flight all at once, while the few egrets look up for a moment, and then resume feeding in the water.