Little Egret - Maine

On 29 June Doug Hitchcox found and photographed an ABA Code-4 Little Egret (Egretta garzetta), the European counterpart to Snowy Egret of the Western Hemisphere.  By afternoon the egret was in the raised bed of Eastern Road Trail, near some salt pans on the east side of the north end of the trail that crosses Scarborough Marsh, Maine.

This egret is reported to have two long plumes. When feeding, Snowy Egret often holds its neck coiled, whereas Little Egret often assumes the posture and hunting methods employed by Great Egret, i.e. standing tall and walking slowly.

The taxonomy of Little Egret has been controversial and until recently some authors lumped Western Reef-Heron and Intermediate Egret with Little Egret.  In Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume 1 the authors treat Little Egret as being polymorphic, including the dark Western Reef-Heron.  However, both the A.O.U. Check-list Committee and the ABA Checklist Committee list Little Egret and its closest relatives as separate species.  The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World separates Western Reef-Heron as a good species, but some authors treat the dimorpha subspecies of Little Egret, Madagascar Dimorphic Egret, as a separate species.  Although Little Egret is an ABA Code-4 bird, the European range of this species is expanding and some ornithologists predict that Little Egret in North America may begin to expand in a manner similar to what has been occurring in Europe.

Comments

[Moncler Jacka]

Thanks, I'm going to have nightmares tonight.