Little Egret

Little Egret

Yesterday was Thursday, another day of birding.  The day is going to require two blogs, the reason for that was a finding of what looks to be another life bird.

We were riding along Ocean Street in Hyannis, Massachusetts on the way to bird Kalmus Beach, when, just before the turn into the beach, Doug said pullover.  He had sighted a small white Egret in the marsh on the right.  At first glance, we thought that it may be a snowy egret.  I packed the car, got out and set up my camera and lens and started taking pictures.  On Full observation of the birds face it did not seem to have the characteristics of a snowy egret.  We started to say possibly a little egret.  We spent at least 15 minutes, observing and photographing the egret.  Not only was I photographing the egret, but my grandson was also photographing the egret, and then the interactions between the Little Egret and a Great Blue Heron.

Little Egret and Great Blue Heron

We consulted the bird guides that we had with us and also surfed the Internet and felt that this was probably a little egret.

Little Egret close-up of face

Little Egret

Little Egret

Little Egret

On our way to our next location, we stopped at the Bird Watcher's General Store to discuss our findings and also to check out the photographs in the "Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America."  After looking at the pictures, we were more convinced that we had found a Little Egret.  I notified the Wellfleet Audubon Sanctuary of the finding.

On arriving home, I download my pictures, selected a number of them posted them on Flickr and sent an email to Massbird with the link to the pictures and asking is it a snowy egret or is it a little egret.

The consensus seems to be that it is most likely a little egret, which is not a normal finding for November in Massachusetts.

I want to thank everyone for the help in ID'ing this unusual bird.

This will make number 641 on my life bird list.