Pacific Reef-Heron (Egretta sacra sacra)

This species is also known as the Pacific Reef Egret (OBC, Robson) but here I follow Clements who calls it Pacific Reef-Heron (IOC goes with Reef Heron without the hyphen). These birds occur in both a dark morph as seen here, and also a white morph which bears a resemblance to the Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes). On our visit we only saw dark morph birds foraging by stalking along the inter-tidal rocks. Two races are recognized. This is the widespread nominate race. Another larger race with a darker bill (E. s. albolineata) is confined to New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands. I will post an image of it later.