ML241977921

Age and sex

Adult, Unknown sex - 1

Media notes

An absolutely horrible photo (at maximal optical & digital zoom across the entire reservoir!) that I would never dream of submitting to eBird except as documentation of a fairly rare species. The photo shows the Cattle Egret in the company of a Great Egret and a White-faced Ibis, for size comparison. The Ibis must be hunched over foraging, as it appears a bit taller in my other photos. The Great Egret's neck is stretched out. The Cattle Egret shows poorly, but the orangeish-looking patch in the lower right of the bird is in fact the buff-orange plumes of the egret, and one can even arguably make out a pixel or two representing the orange-yellow bill.

Observation details

Foraging on far shore in the NE portion of the reservoir, scoped at a great distance in poor light. Small body size (similar to Snowy Egrets in the vicinity and much smaller than the Great Egret that it briefly was next to). Yellow-orange color visible on head and extensively across lower back region (plumes), unlike nearby Snowies that appeared pure white in similar lighting conditions. Could not see bill well at this distance, but I think it also looked orangish — at least it looked neither black nor pale yellow. The bird walked with a lurching chicken-like gait as it foraged high on the drier mud, unlike the gaits of the Snowies at the waterline. I have embedded the "best" of my four horrendous photos, and added the following explanatory notes to the Media Notes: "An absolutely horrible photo (at maximal optical & digital zoom across the entire reservoir!) that I would never dream of submitting to eBird except as documentation of a fairly rare species. The photo shows the Cattle Egret in the company of a Great Egret and a White-faced Ibis, for size comparison. The Ibis must be hunched over foraging, as it appears a bit taller in my other photos. The Great Egret's neck is stretched out. The Cattle Egret shows poorly, but the orangeish-looking patch in the lower right of the bird is in fact the buff-orange plumes of the egret, and one can even arguably make out a pixel or two representing the orange-yellow bill."

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX70 HS

Lens

3.8-247mm

ISO

100

Focal length

247 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.5

Shutter speed

1/400 sec

Dimensions

3416 pixels x 2478 pixels

Original file size

1.58 MB