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A Snowy Egret Dancing for Dinner

Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) photos by Larry Jordan

The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) takes a wide range of prey items including earthworms, annelid worms, aquatic and terrestrial insects, crabs, shrimp, prawns, crayfish, other crustaceans, snails, freshwater and marine fish, frogs, toads, snakes and lizards. Even though they consume this variety of prey items, their diet consists predominately of fish. Click on photos for full sized images.

The Snowy Egret also has the broadest feeding behavioral repertoire of all North American herons1.

In this series of photos this bird is open-wing feeding (above), running…

and walking slowly showing its yellow or golden slippers.

I caught a few more shots as he or she moved farther away.

It was like I was watching an elaborate dance…

until another Snowy Egret flew nearby, seemingly annoying the bird I had been photographing to the point of an ensuing chase.

The video below I shot at Arcada Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary, an incredible 307 acre wetland on the California Coast. You will see the Snowy Egret showing several of its fishing techniques, including foot stirring behavior in the first 30 seconds of the video.

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References: 1Birds of North America Online

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Mia McPherson March 27, 2012, 5:35 am

    Wonderful action images Larry! Snowy Egrets are amusing subjects to photograph, especially when they are hunting!

  • nature rambles March 27, 2012, 8:27 am

    Beautiful captures, Larry! I also enjoyed the video, particularly the foot-stirring behaviour.

  • TexWisGirl March 27, 2012, 8:30 am

    so beautiful! and entertaining. 🙂

  • HansHB March 27, 2012, 12:30 pm

    A very good photo!
    Perfect for WBW!

  • eileen March 27, 2012, 1:12 pm

    Beautiful egret and awesome photos. They are fun to watch!

  • fjällripan March 27, 2012, 1:29 pm

    Fantastic photos of this beautiful bird!!

  • Ken Schneider March 27, 2012, 3:19 pm

    So graceful, and very nice narrative, larry!

  • Martha Z March 27, 2012, 8:13 pm

    Great images and video, Larry. We observed the foot stirring at Woodbridge, I hadn’t seen it before that.

  • Mick March 27, 2012, 9:06 pm

    A great series of photos. It’s very interesting to see so many different poses as the bird searches for and catches its food.

  • Mary Howell Cromer March 28, 2012, 4:08 am

    Fascinating Larry, and so beautiful. How marvelous that you were there to get these wonderful captures!!!

  • Boom & Gary March 28, 2012, 5:11 am

    Great action shots Larry!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

  • Modesto Viegas (Portugal) March 28, 2012, 8:42 am

    A great series of a good dancer…

  • joo March 28, 2012, 11:53 am

    It’s such a beautiful bird! I love the photos and videos are superb!

  • Pat March 28, 2012, 4:29 pm

    What a fantastic series of photos showing this bird in action! Love it!

  • springman March 28, 2012, 6:10 pm

    Excellent as always Larry!
    ;-)WBW!

  • Jean March 30, 2012, 9:45 pm

    Larry, I enjoyed the dance and the fishing.
    Super photos and videos!