Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

Cattle Egrets

Cattle Egrets are unique among our birds. While they're as foreign to this continent as Starlings and English Sparrows they alone made it to the New World without human assistance.

Cattle Egrets come from Africa where they're familiar as the birds seen perching atop rhinos and other big game. When their animal perch moves and stirs up insects the birds fly down for a quick meal and return to their perch, or sometimes forage a short distance behind a moving herd snapping up insects.

Photo © 2005 Jim Jung and licensors. All rights reserved.

In our area Cattle Egrets are seasonal visitors who merely migrate through our area and rarely stay so they're most often seen in spring and fall. Almost any low, seasonably wet field with cattle can be counted on to host a few birds each year.

Cattle Egrets first appeared in eastern Brazil in the 1930's - coincidentally with the rise of cattle ranching there - and reached North America in the 1950's. They've been apparently crossing the Atlantic for millenia but have been unable to establish themselves in this hemisphere because of the lack of suitable habitat (herds of large grazing animals and the fields they require). So it's thanks to us and our civilization that they've since gone on to colonize two additional continents.

Offsite Link:

• National Wildlife Federation - African Egrets? Holy Cow!

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