Little Egret though not with yellow eyes - Seaforth Liverpool UK May 21 (2 Viewers)

[RichieTwitchy]

Hi all

Just going through some old photos and I came across this Little Egret which did not have yellow eyes.

After a scan through Google (too many results with too many pages not addressing the eye colouring) I came across one web page that suggested it was a sexually immature bird.

Can anyone confirm this please?

thanks guys.

 

[01101001]

Species Files – Guia Blasco Zumeta de Aves says it would be a juvenile (iris grey-blue)

 

[pompenguin]

Hi all

Just going through some old photos and I came across this Little Egret which did not have yellow eyes.

After a scan through Google (too many results with too many pages not addressing the eye colouring) I came across one web page that suggested it was a sexually immature bird.

Can anyone confirm this please?

thanks guys.

Juvenile iris grey-blue, 2nd year spring iris dull yellow, 3rd year spring iris yellow. Taken from: http://blascozumeta.com/specie_files/01190_Egretta_garzetta_E.pdf

 

[Butty]

2nd year spring iris dull yellow

Being a ringer-type publication, it actually means spring of 2nd calendar year - which is spring of 1st year in normal-speak.

3rd year spring iris yellow

It doesn't say that. It says 'adult in spring' - which presumably means 2nd-year in spring (nearly 2 years old) and older.

 

[MacNara]

The pink loral area is breeding colouration, so it can't be sexually immature. Also, the chest and back of this bird have breeding plumes, and there is also a hint of plumes developing (or having been shed) at the back of the head.

I think the eye is just because of the light - I can't find - on a quick search - a photo that matches completely, but my third photo shows a fairly large black outer ring, then yellow and then the pupil.

Attached - three different birds, all from central Japan (Nara and Osaka) 2010, 2014, 2015.

 

[Butty]

I think the eye is just because of the light

The view in these photos, all of the same individual bird, is well illuminated by direct sunlight - so the light is good and allows the iris colour to be judged with confidence: it's greenish-black with a narrow pale-yellow inner ring. From the data cited above, this seems consistent (in May) with a 1st-spring/1-year-old bird, and some development of head/neck-plumes seems not-inconsistent with that. Given how rapidly herons' bare-part colours can change in the breeding season, it also would be unsurprising if a 1-year-old developed some such colour at the bill-base.

 

[MacNara]

It's (see OP's photo one) a breeding bird with breeding colour loral area, and breeding plumes on the back and the chest.

The OP asked if it was a 'sexually immature bird. Can you confirm?'

So, yes, we can confirm that it isn't a sexually immature bird.

 

[RichieTwitchy]

Thanks for all the feedback guys - everyday is a school day.

Here is a close up - whether that is needed now is another thing after all the informative answers, but just in case the images viewed via a phone may be too small to see the colour difference sufficiently.