ML66332971

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - X

Media notes

juvenile Snowy Egret, Pueblo Reservoir, CO, 17 Aug. 2017

Observation details

This bird threw us off for a while. Dull yellow legs, pale bill not showing distinctive dark to light transitions, plumage all white with no dark toward the wingtips. Seems slightly larger than snowy egret. After studying the photos, the immature feathers on the chin and crown indicate its a juvenile bird that does not match Little Blue Heron. This is probably just a awkward-looking, ill-colored, post-fledgling individual. ... I (JW) concur with Mark (above). After reviewing my photos and video, I too feel our bird was almost certainly a juvenile Snowy Egret in the plumage easily mistaken for Little Blue and substantially different from the older immature Snowies I am more used to seeing. On our bird, as revealed by photos & video, all wingtips appear truly to be completely white, the bill and eye and head structure and coloration appears more like Snowy than Little Blue, and the sometimes-active foraging behavior in retrospect was much better for Snowy. The warning signs were there in the field and we had picked up on most of them, but the strikingly monochrome legs, the washed-out bill, and the bird's initial posture when first studied all led us down the wrong path.

Technical information

Model

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

ISO

100

Focal length

247 mm

Flash

Flash fired, red-eye reduction

f-stop

f/6.5

Shutter speed

1/800 sec

Dimensions

1824 pixels x 2111 pixels

Original file size

864.73 KB