Egret tidbits
Lores - or Loral area is the small patch of skin between the eye and base of the bill. On Great Egrets this area takes on a bright green color during breeding season.
Plume hunting - During the late 1800's and early 1900's it became fashionable to wear stuffed birds and feathers on women's hats. The fluffy white breeding aigrettes from the Great and Snowy Egrets were particularly prized. Many plume hunters travelled to the Everglades where thousands of these egrets gathered in huge breeding colonies. Easy prey as they tended their young, they were shot for a handful of feathers. The loss was compounded by the fact that the young also died.
To understand how lucrative this slaughter was consider that in 1903 an ounce of plumes brought $32, gold was about $15 an ounce. There were times the price of these feathers went as high as $80.
When is a Great Egret not a Great Egret? - When traveling in south Florida (and occasionally in our area too) that big white bird wading on the edge of the mangroves may not be who it seems. Here in Florida Great Blue Herons can also be white. Genetically a “morph” or alternate form of a given species, it’s white color is not a developmental “phase” but an actual color variant of our familiar grey/blue friend. To tell them apart the easiest and most obvious differences are size (egrets are a little smaller) and leg color (egrets have black legs, GBH’s legs are yellow).
Great Egret
Great Blue Heron (white morph)
