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Leucistic Great Blue Heron or Melanistic Great Egret? Minnesota USA (1 Viewer)

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bikesmith

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A good friend, who is a much more experienced birder than I, tells me my BIF below is a Leucistic Great Blue Heron.

First I had to look up “Leucistic”8-P

Google turned up several "leucistic Great Blue Heron” pix but none had the glossy black legs of a Great Egret.

So I googled “opposite of Leucistic” and came up with Melanistic.

I think it’s more likely a Melanistic Great Egret, but he's adamant that it's a Blue. Something about "Jizz"???

Whoever's right, I've added 2 new words in my vocabulary:t:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikesmith/16336224328/ Unknown BIF

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bikesmith/8270974850/ Great Heron Both shot w/ Panasonic FZ150
 
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Nice photos BTW. I'm saying blue heron though I'm no expert. That's what I thought, though, looking at the photo. Just looks like a blue heron
 
I'm seeing a normal Great Egret. Wrong coloured legs and nothing wrong with the jizz for a Great Egret. Great Blue Heron has a bigger bill. It;s also white so can't see why it's melanistic.
 
Looks to me like a Great Egret, plain and simple, though I can see how the impression of blue-grey wings would lead people in the wrong direction.

The legs are very black (and I'm pretty sure they really are black, not just covered in black mud).

There is no crest on the head that I can see, and no hint of dark markings where a GBH would have them: crest, a thin stripe along the neck, ...
(The dark markings may be absent in some forms of leucism, but not others.)

The bill seems to be a darker orange than you'd expect on either a GBH or a GE, and that's a hint...

Look very closely at the apparently blue-grey regions of the wings: they're in shadow. The border of the grey region cuts across individual feathers, and it's not symmetric from one wing to another. Maybe there's a teensy hint of melanism here (the less-dark portions of the wing still dont' look pure white), but I think it's just a question of how the image was exposed and/or processed: bright sky and bright-white sunlit body caused the wing to be underexposed.
 
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Great Egret,
a comparable shot from Germany yesterday. The shadows are not as dark but a slight darkening effect is also seen in this photo. Minnesota is a lot further south than Northern Germany, with stronger sunshine
 

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Red_Shoulder said:
I'm no expert, but I sent the link to a friend who is, and who lives near a Ramsar wetland, and he didn't know. He wondered if it had been taken in USA. Could this be a European or Asian bird? The neck and wings look like a GBH imo.

Found this

http://home.earthlink.net/~pomarine/id22.html
Click to expand...

I'd certainly wonder if that was a hybrid. It has several great egret traits and several GBH (or grey heron?) traits.

The original bird is a normal great egret to me. The white form of grey heron does not have black legs, and there are several great egret features present.

Btw, melanistic is when a bird is much darker than usual. Put "melanistic egret" into google images for examples.
 
Andy Hurley said:
Great Egret,
a comparable shot from Germany yesterday. The shadows are not as dark but a slight darkening effect is also seen in this photo. Minnesota is a lot further south than Northern Germany, with stronger sunshine
Click to expand...

The photo was taken on October 8th as the sun was setting. So not too bright. Could be shadows, but looks like too much contrast to me. Unless something was askew WRT dynamic range

The original photo was underexposed. Here is a 100% crop
http://bikesmithdesign.com/pix/black_wing_100_crop.jpg

BTW When I google Melanistic Heron or Melanistic birds I see examples that are darker in some areas but normal in others.
 
bikesmith said:
The photo was taken on October 8th as the sun was setting. So not too bright. Could be shadows, but looks like too much contrast to me. Unless something was askew WRT dynamic range

The original photo was underexposed. Here is a 100% crop
http://bikesmithdesign.com/pix/black_wing_100_crop.jpg

BTW When I google Melanistic Heron or Melanistic birds I see examples that are darker in some areas but normal in others.
Click to expand...

We're happy to have you onboard on the Forum - I'd recommend you trust this gang. We've been doing this a long time (both birding, and breaking down photo IDs). It's a regular Great Egret. Not melanistic. Wings are clearly in shadow.
 
Check out this pic from South Carolina:
https://phillanoue.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/great-egret-flight-in-evening-ng-01_filtered.jpg

Almost identical to your bird in terms of posture. You'll notice that it's in high breeding plumage, with the darker top of its bill, green lores, and tail plumes - but besides that it's a deadringer, just from a different angle. And low and behold, the lack of sunlight below creates a darker impression of the underwings. Great Egrets have underwing coverts, too. They're just not as pronounced as GBH, and that's where your photo's lighting gets you into trouble.

I think part of the GBH impression that hasn't been discussed yet, is that your bird looks like it has a lumpy belly. But when you look closely, it's just wet, droopy feathers.
 
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The original bird is a Great Egret -- note the gape (commissure), which extends below and behind the eye and turns down slightly. No other USA Egretta or Ardea show that feature. Additionally, the legs are just too dark for Great Blue.
 
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