Identifying White Egrets and Herons

Identifying White Egrets and Herons
from Scott Simmons' Nature Blog

He describes and displays images of the three standard "white egrets", but more importantly he discusses "other white herons and egrets": Little Blue Herons are all white when they are immature, and both Great Blue Herons and Reddish Egrets have white "morphs" that appear in Florida.

Personally I can easily identify the immature little blue herons (and we saw hundreds of them this year in Florida), but I forget to look for the white great blue heron (dark beak and grey legs versus the great egret who has a yellow beak and black legs). I am not sure that I have evern identified a white morph reddish egret...Lisa

"I became interested in birding and bird photography largely because of the beauty of herons and egrets, or what is known as the family Ardeidae (herons, egrets and bitterns). Herons and egrets are not biologically distinct from each other; an egret is basically a heron with pretty breeding plumage pretty--pretty enough that they were hunted to near extinction in order to make feather hats in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of the species of Ardeidae commonly found in the United States, there are three species of Egret that are typically white in color as adults. I thought it would be helpful to show pictures of all three to help you distinguish between them.


see the photos and descriptions here:
http://www.learnoutdoorphotography.com/2011/11/identifying-white-egrets-and-herons.html