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The Great Egret

© Fred J. Kane

The Great Egret This large slender, graceful long legged, long necked, wading bird, the Great Egret stands about three feet tall and has a wingspan of almost five feet. The Great Egret has a long thick yellow beak, black legs and feet and its feathers are entirely white. Both the male female and juvenile Great Egrets have similar plumage.

Plume hunters called this bird "long white", for the filamentous feathers that trail down its back.

The Great Egret prefers a habitat next to open water in savannas, along creeks and streams, mud flats, shore line coves, inland lakes and marshland where it breeds and forages for food.

The Great Egret is a global bird that inhabits five continents. Here in the United States the Great Egrets spend the winter from South Carolina southward and they can be found as far north as Massachusetts in the summer months. Also the Great Egret is a common migrant to the south land like Mississippi.

The bird constructs its nest of brushwood and small branches or stems of swamp vegetation with little or no lining. The Great Egret builds their nests in average sized trees about 20 40 feet up from the ground.

Their nests, made up of reeds and sticks, are often high up in trees and may harbor as many as five or six eggs. In the breeding season, both males and females exhibit long back plumes that were once valued in the feather trade. It is well known of all the herons in Belize.

During the breeding season it displays a spectacular cloak of delicate feathery plumes. During the early 1800s, women wanted the breeding feathers of this bird for their hats. Intense hunting drove the Great Egret to near extinction before the public demanded laws to protecting the bird. Today, contamination and loss of environment caused their population to decline throughout the world. By World War I, with the change of style and thought about wildlife protection, breeding plumes on ladies hats had all but disappeared.

After mating the female lays from three to five blue, green eggs from April to July. She incubates the eggs for three to four weeks and then the chicks are born. About seven weeks later the young birds begin fledging. Normally the Great Egret has one brood each year.

It's diet consists mainly of aquatic invertebrates, reptiles and fish. The Great Egret curls its wiry neck, preparing to impale its prey. When available the Great Egret will eat reptiles, like small snakes, crayfish, shrimp, aquatic insects, toads, snails, small birds, crabs and frog. Also unwary small animals like field mice may become part of the egret's meal. Egrets are excellent fishermen who stand motionless in the water waiting for fish, although snakes, frogs, or some insects may be added to their diet.

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