Great egret is poetry in motion

Great egret walking — If music were tangible it would take your form.

It’s easy to overlook this bird or take it for granted because none of its features individually is remarkable — no upturned bill like the avocet, no big feet with lobed toes like the American coot, bubblegum colored legs like the black-necked stilt, no overdeveloped lower mandible like the black skimmer — but somehow all his ordinary features are put together in such a way as to make him one of the more elegant, poetry-inspiring birds. Watching his slow, deliberate, graceful steps is a joy.

You can usually find him from one end of the island to the other. He’s not above foraging for insects in pastures, but you’ve probably seen him more often standing with body bent forward and neck erect in the shallow water of a lake, lagoon or marsh. He’ll lunge forward with lightning speed to grab his prey — be it fish, crustacean, salamander or snake — with his spearlike bill as it swims by (see photos below of a great egret capturing his prize).

He’s relatively easy to distinguish from other members of the egret family — his legs and feet are black, unlike the snowy egret who sports the “golden slippers.” He’s considerably larger than the cattle egret and, unlike the white morph of the reddish egret who has a black bill, the great egret’s bill is orange.

In their breeding plumage, great egrets develop long plumes that trail from his back, extending well beyond the tail.

Unfortunately, these beautiful plumes that make him so attractive to the opposite sex nearly brought about his demise because they also were attractive to ladies at the turn of the 19th century who wanted to adorn their hats with them and were willing to pay a pretty penny for the opportunity to do so. While plumes were taken from a great many species, the extensive losses to the egret population was so great that they were selected as the “poster birds” for the resulting bird preservation movement.

Next week, we’ll tickle your imagination with all sorts of interesting facts about feathers.