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Great Egret bill colouration (1 Viewer)

Thanks for everyone's comments. This seems to be one which a number of different parties would have to agree to disagree.
 
I find ridiculous this is even open for debate - especially using road width etc let alone bill colour.

It simply isn't close to looking like a Great and the gape is completely wrong - guess folks in the UK who rarely see one are better experts than folks from areas that have them all the time.....
 
I find ridiculous this is even open for debate - especially using road width etc let alone bill colour.

It simply isn't close to looking like a Great and the gape is completely wrong - guess folks in the UK who rarely see one are better experts than folks from areas that have them all the time.....

It said above, away from the beak looking short (anyway, not a clue to claim a Great Egret or an albino heron), it is a perfect Little Egret.
 
Hi AlinoVegano, your id is spot on, the comments from Gordon of "This seems to be one which a number of different parties would have to agree to disagree" make it clear that the dissenting view (i.e. it's a Little) are being ignored.

That is what I was referring to as ridiculous given that those dissenting obviously have no experience or idea on what a Great Egret looks like!
 
For goodness sake Viator aren't you the smart one?

You have absolutely no idea who has expressed a different opinion and consequently what their experience is of any species.

That's what the expression "agree to disagree" means -we are not convinced about the identification based on this picture but neither are we arrogant enough to shove our view down your throat. We accept we may be wrong and have moved on.
 
I should also say that this has not been a debate. No-one else has been involved. I merely reported other opinions that had been previously expressed.

So all of those smart-Alec comments were wasted but I do hope that your supposed superiority makes you feel good. Because, in reality nobody was listening.

But, thanks for your help anyway.
 
I think a large Little Egret - they do vary in size. That neck is not long enough and lacks the kinks of the Great White Egrets I have seen.
 
Not commenting on people's reactions to other people's reactions or the original reactions (or actions) ...

... but, assuming the road is a single track road (ie the rough bit down the middle goes between the two sets of wheels on a vehicle), it's not a particularly large bird at all ...
 
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There is nothing in the coloration that suggests Great White Egret to me. In the short duration breeding colours, when the bill is black, there are distinctive green lores behind and the legs are quite red. See pic below which was taken on 7th May 2016. At all other times, the bill and lores are all yellow as in 2nd pic taken 1st March 2017

So, I'm inclined to agree with the Little Egret ID although, as others have said, the bill is incredibly short for Little Egret - see third pic
 

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Just to widen the debate, below is a pic I found on the internet of a juvenile Cattle Egret, short black bill with feathering underneath, very like the bird in Gordon's picture. Any thoughts? Not sure about size and some other features but the head generally looks closer than any Great Whites or Littles I've seen.

Where was your pic taken Gordon? There aren't many breeding Cattle Egrets in the UK although we have had young 9 raised here on the Somerset Levels this year and there are others in Dorset I believe.
 

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Just to widen the debate, below is a pic I found on the internet of a juvenile Cattle Egret, short black bill with feathering underneath, very like the bird in Gordon's picture. Any thoughts? Not sure about size and some other features but the head generally looks closer than any Great Whites or Littles I've seen.

For my part: I tried to answer Gordon's question as best I could. What he does with the information privately and among friends is up to him, but what he does on a public forum is not because it may end up misleading others.

Mott: it may come as a shock, but the internet isn't always correct.

For example, if you do a search for 'Great Egret bill' on Google today, this current thread is the third result. But, as we have established, it's a Little Egret. So, Google and Gordon are here providing 'false news'. And indeed Bird Forum is in the Facebook / Twitter position of publishing this false news. Should BF delete this thread? Anyway, if some of you are wondering why some posters are getting angry about Gordon insisting that this bird could be something other than a Little Egret, it's because there are already a lot of wrongly-identified (with no ill-will) bird photos on the internet, and if these become a majority or significant minority, then it will be impossible to use the free internet as a resource.

And so, Mott: what information do you have, other than the label that you 'found on the internet', that this bird is a Cattle Egret?

It has a black bill, and Cattle Egrets have yellow-orange bills (and horn-coloured bills when not yellow). As well as the black bill, everything else fits with a Little Egret. So why isn' this a Little Egret, too, maybe young, with its face turned at an angle, so its bill looks short (as may also be the case wiith Gordon's photo)?

I attach some photos of Little Egrets which identify features of the bird which your internet photo may suggest lead to the Cattle Egret ID. All were taken by me, the first three very near my house and the fourth at the sea 100km away.

All of these Egrets and Herons birds - Great (modesta and alba, which I think are obviously two species), Intermediate, Little and Cattle, as well as the most common Grey Heron, are near my house in large numbers for months each year. But I still, after ten years, take photos where I'm not sure, because of light or posture or whatever. Hey, even Black-crowned Night Heron can look like a Little Egret in shade, sometimes, or vice versa.

1. Hunched posture, with some 'mohican' suggestions on the head feathering. Rotate this head a bit towards the front, and the bill looks shorter (February).

2. Pale tip to a not-so-black bill, and a generally similar head colouring, but the extraordinarily yellow feet make the ID no problem (September).

3. Again, rotate the head a little and you have the same shape as your internet Cattle Egret (November).

4. And these Little Egrets arguing (mid-September) show how the remains of the head crests can look like a mohican cut as Cattle Egret often does.

Of course, my IDs may be off. Post if you think so.
 

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And by chance, after I made my last post, I started going through some photos from yesterday. I had gone to the coast (120km or so) to look at early-migrating shorebirds. But there were huge numbers of egrets, among which these two. Completely different species surely? A lesson to myself as much as anyone else, but I hope everyone who has looked at this thread, including Gordon, enjoys it.
 

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Juvenile Cattle Egrets have black bills (according to the internet).

I've never seriously birded outside Japan, where the species has been split into Eastern Cattle Egret, and I've never seen a Cattle Egret with a dark bill, even though we've had loads around this summer, so it's quite possible that I'm wrong about this, in which case apologies to MotttheHoopoe. But I don't really think this is an option for Gordon's bird, and in any case my point was to highlight the way postures and angles can change things dramatically.

Off topic: I think I saw Mott the Hoople once at Birmingham Town Hall in the early 1970s. Could they even have been supporting David Bowie with Mick Ronson on the Ziggy Stardust Tour?
 
I've never seriously birded outside Japan, where the species has been split into Eastern Cattle Egret, and I've never seen a Cattle Egret with a dark bill, even though we've had loads around this summer, so it's quite possible that I'm wrong about this, in which case apologies to MotttheHoopoe. But I don't really think this is an option for Gordon's bird, and in any case my point was to highlight the way postures and angles can change things dramatically.

eg https://twitter.com/CBWPS1/status/894503489786851328

Collins doesn't mention it however, but presumably a feature of 'Western Cattle Egret'.

(And the chances of a lone juv Cattle Egret wandering Scotland must be pretty low in addition ... )
 
MacNara - you need to get a f*****g grip.

Accusing me of posting false news. At no point did I express an opinion on the identification of the bird in the picture nor did I contradict what anyone else said.

However, yourself, along with Viator, are now my 2 favourite internet birding experts especially with your finely honed people skills. The world is indeed a sorry place - we need many more like yourselves who can see so much and, at the same time, dismiss so much from one poor picture.

So, once again, thanks for all your help.
 
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MacNara - you need to get a f*****g grip.

Accusing me of posting false news. At no point did I express an opinion on the identification of the bird in the picture nor did I contradict what anyone else said.

I was just trying to make a joke. Apologies if it upset you.

Anyway, if the young Cattle Egret over there has a black bill, then the joke's on me for trying to be too clever-clever. Though it makes my point, but in the reverse way to that which I had intended.
 
After a very short search on OBI:
http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?Bird_ID=1108&Bird_Image_ID=141590&Bird_Family_ID=
http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?Bird_ID=1108&Bird_Image_ID=59678&Bird_Family_ID=

These support that Eastern Cattle Egret chicks do have black bills. In my experience these usually turn yellow at around the time of fledging. IMO Mott's photo is a Cattle Egret (look at the black legs and feet to rule out Little).

That's not to say that Gordon's photo is a Cattle Egret. I agree that it is probably a Little Egret.
 
Well, John, I've learned something. I've never seen that, although they breed around my area. In that case, I agree that Mott's photo is Cattle Egret, and therefore the joke is on me.

I apologise again for offending Gordon and Mott. I was simply trying to make a feeble joke with a contemporary reference ('fake news'). Mis-identification of photos on the internet is a problem that has no obvious solution. I'm sure I have done it myself in my early days, though I try now to be more careful about giving a positive ID to something I'm not sure about. IDs for photos in the Bird Forum galleries are sometimes wrong and sometimes re-assigned, and Bird Forum photos often come up early in internet image searches.

I wasn't trying to insult Gordon, and I hope he will accept my apology. Here in Japan, I was writing in the late evening after a few beers and feeling cheerful and humorous. I misjudged the way the comments would be received in a time zone eight hours earlier. And probably misjudged the comments themselves. I've always been against the use of emoji to indicate mood and intention, but maybe I should learn to use them.

But, as I said, this thread comes up as the third result in a search about Great Egret bill colour, and it's easy to imagine that some casual reader will get it into their head that a Great Egret with a black bill has been seen (or confidently been thought to have been seen) in Scotland in August. The comment about Gordon spreading fake news was meant to be a joke, but the rapidity with which Google has pushed it up the rankings shows how incorrect or tentative IDs can spread. And it has made me realise how 'fake news' can be created in more important areas than a bird ID among a small group of friends.

None of the Japan / Asian books that I have (in Japanese or English) shows or mentions a black bill (e.g. Brazil 'Birds of East Asia'). However, the only European bird book I have - Svensson's et al 'Birds of Europe' shows this clearly in the illustrations. Considering how compact it is, Svensson's book contains an astonishing amount of information. I sometimes consult it on birds which are common to large areas of Eurasia, and I wish I had in this case.
 
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