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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacNara" data-source="post: 3606117" data-attributes="member: 23290">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.</blockquote>

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