Grey or Great White Heron Kyoto Japan (1 Viewer)

[MacNara]

The attached photographs were taken by a friend of mine in the last couple of days and are posted here with his permission. They are genuine photographs of one bird and not Photoshop or AI creations. Is it a hybrid? Or what? All comments welcome, but we haven't seen anything like this. Background: it's the breeding season for both Grey Heron and Great White Egret (modesta) in our area of central Japan.

His blog post:

交雑か？。。 : ☆☆たいかな日記☆☆

 

[Butty]

Looks like it must be either aberrant grey heron or (painful to consider it) hybrid grey heron x great egret. 'Great white heron' (thread title) is a completely different thing (SE USA, bigger bill), and this isn't it.

 

[MacNara]

Looks like it must be either aberrant grey heron or (painful to consider it) hybrid grey heron x great egret.

Yes. My friend is extremely experienced, but mystified by this. The head considered by itself looks clear for Great White, while some of the body feathering seems to have juvenile features, but in our area there is no way it could be a bird from this year.

Edit: [just my observation, not that of my friend], but the wing colouration looks more like juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron (also very common here) than Grey Heron (although the throat seems like Grey).

'Great white heron' (thread title) is a completely different thing (SE USA, bigger bill), and this isn't it.

I was trying to keep the title compact and going on the usual equivalence of 'heron' and 'egret'. I have zero experience of 'New World' birds and wasn't aware of 'Great White Heron'. Thanks for keeping me on my toes, as always.

Anyway, any further comments from Butty or anyone will be welcomed. No-one is trying to claim anything extraordinary. It's just a straightforward 'Hey, what's this?' thing.

 

[nartreb]

(Off topic) Great White Heron is a rare, local (Florida) all-white "morph" of Great Blue Heron. TIL that some ornithologiss not only consider GWH a subspecies, but argue it should be split into a separate species.

(On topic) The bird in the photo has bluish lores (more or less as expected for grey heron) but seems to have darker legs than usual for a Grey. If that's not dirt (or a feature of sub-adult birds? But this bird has plumes at the base of the neck, seems to be adult) then it's a point against the idea of a pigment-deficient bird and in favor of a hybrid.

 

[Xenospiza]

Agree with Grey Heron × Great White Egret, see e.g. Presumed hybrid Grey heron x Great White Egret (Ardea cinerea x Egretta alba) in Doñana, Spain

It is a rare hybrid: no pictures on waarneming.nl, despite regular reports. In the 1980s there was obviously a bird roaming the Netherlands.

 

[stevethehydra]

Great Blue Heron x Great Egret has been recorded: Great Blue Heron x Great Egret - looks quite similar to your bird except for an impression of greater bulk, as you'd expect from a case in which both parents have essentially the same plumage as your bird's suspected parents, but are somewhat larger.

I'm actually less persuaded that the Spanish bird from 2011-13 is a hybrid than that yours is - your bird has Great Egret-like "jizz" for me especially in the second photo (very long and slender neck with a hint of the GE "kink", slimmer/sharper bill than typical Grey Heron), whereas the Spanish bird seems within expected structure for GH to me, plus has more GH plumage features like the dark shoulder patch. I might well have called that one as a leucistic cinerea rather than a hybrid, unless there were additional (e.g. behavioural) factors associating it with alba.

Yours I'd be more inclined to call either a hybrid or alba/modesta with abnormal grey plumage (if that even occurs, I've never heard of it! Though of course various white Egretta species have grey morphs, so it might be possible...)

 

[MacNara]

Thank you everyone. I'll pass your comments on to my friend.

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

Yes, this looks good for a hybrid Grey heron x Great white egret.

I saw one myself some years ago in Belgium:

https://flic.kr/p/29tLj8q

Other cases are known for example from Spain

Presumed hybrid Grey heron x Great White Egret (Ardea cinerea x Egretta alba) in Doñana, Spain

Presumed Ardea cinerea x Egretta alba . Entremuros, PN Doñana, Sevilla, 1.11.2013 © Carlos M.Martín Versión en castellano: usar 'Transl...

birdspain.blogspot.com

Sweden (Gotland)

Gråhäger x ägretthäger

2 1K rastande Klase, Gtl 19 sep 2014 - Media: Per Smitterberg

www.artportalen.se

Italy

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301778411_A_hybrid_Grey_Heron_x_Great_White_Egret_in_Sardinia

Poland

Galeria fotografii | CLANGA.com

 

[01101001]

Fixed broken link for the Polish one (the one above doesn't work for me, at least): Galeria fotografii | CLANGA.com

 

[MacNara]

Again, thank you very much Joern and others who replied earlier. I have passed this on to my friend.

 

[MacNara]

There used to be a thing called Bird Forum TV. Does it still exist?

I looked as much as I could and did general internet searches, but I couldn't find anything.

And if it does what format is good, and what file size and how do you resize appropriately?

I don't usually post photos to the Gallery because I don't usually have especially unusual photos.

But because of this thread, when I took a video this morning of a Grey Heron feeding on an Asian Swamp Eel, I thought I might post it, but I couldn't see how, and how to encourage people to see it either.

 

[01101001]

BirdForum TV doesn't exist anymore (and all videos from there are no longer available), but you can upload your video to the Gallery (don't forget to tag it with the word 'video'). Here's how to do it (there are some videos among recently posted media now, so you can see what it looks like afterwards):

I understand that videos need to be hosted elsewhere in order to be embedded on our site.

The main sites you can use to host your videos include: Facebook, Flickr, Pinterest, Spotify, Tik Tok, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. You can then either upload your videos to the Gallery using the Embed Media button, or in a thread by clicking on the icon with the double picture "Media" icon above the message pane.

I hope this helps, but please don't be afraid to ask if you have any questions.

 

[MacNara]

Hi and thanks. If it's not a BirdForum thing any more, then that's fine. I don't want to sign up to any of those other sites which I have avoided successfully so far.

 

[01101001]

Here's a full list in case you have an account with any of those:

• Apple Music
• Dailymotion
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Giphy
• Imgur
• Pinterest
• Reddit
• SoundCloud
• Spotify
• TikTok
• Tumblr
• Twitch
• Twitter
• Vimeo
• YouTube

 

[MacNara]

Here's a full list in case you have an account with any of those:

• Apple Music
• Dailymotion
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Giphy
• Imgur
• Pinterest
• Reddit
• SoundCloud
• Spotify
• TikTok
• Tumblr
• Twitch
• Twitter
• Vimeo
• YouTube

No. None of those. Deliberately.

I first used a computer in 1970 or so (Fortran programming at secondary school - yes a rather special school - the computer was the size of a large bus, and we had to print each line of code on a card). And I've used Apple machines for forty years plus. So, I'm not anti-computer or any kind of general technophobe.

All of the sites you have listed are designed - deliberately (read their stock-market promotion bumff) - to make their users into morons; or at least more stupid people than they would otherwise be. And that's how they make money.

I like being able to post the odd photo on here (BF) to like-minded people and I enjoy our back-and-forth. But I have no desire at all to link from here to anywhere else.

 

[01101001]

So, maybe a photo then (or a video still)?

 

[MacNara]

So, maybe a photo then (or a video still)?

The point was a three-minute video of the struggle from the moment the heron found the eel until the time it swallowed it showing the whole process of repeatedly squeezing its neck, throwing it down, poking it with the bill to weaken or kill it, and repeat... (and the eel tries to wrap itself around the bill of the heron meaning it can't be swallowed - occasionally the eel wins)...

The stills are of no great interest as stills, I think. I was thinking of posting just for interest, and because this thread already had the same kind of heron in the same place.

 

[01101001]

Thanks. Yes, sorry, I don't use any of the above either (with a possible exception of YouTube sometimes), but I have dormant accounts on some.

 

[MacNara]

Will this work? I kept trying and trying to make it smaller. Anyway, if the thread hadn't already been about Grey Herons, I wouldn't have bothered.

In Japan, maybe before WW2, various species were tried as possible food sources, including Bullfrogs. Another was the Asian Swamp Eel which I think is from Myanmar or Thailand. Anyway, these failed in terms of food for humans, but decades later are the main delicacy for Grey Herons in our small city of Nara (this spot was the first 'permanent' capital of Japan from 710ad) and there is just a few tens of hectares of remaining reedbed in a park in the centre of the city where this video was taken.

Fingers crossed that this gets through.

I hope some of you enjoy it, and if it works you point it out to others who are not following this thread but might enjoy it.

View attachment Aosagi Taungai Fight.mp4

 

[MacNara]

My friend asked me to thank you all for your comments.

He has posted some more photos of the bird on his blog:

気になり再訪。。 : ☆☆たいかな日記☆☆