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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacNara" data-source="post: 3606516" data-attributes="member: 23290">Well, John, I've learned something. I've never seen that, although they breed around my area. In that case, I agree that Mott's photo is Cattle Egret, and therefore the joke is on me.I apologise again for offending Gordon and Mott. I was simply trying to make a feeble joke with a contemporary reference ('fake news'). Mis-identification of photos on the internet is a problem that has no obvious solution. I'm sure I have done it myself in my early days, though I try now to be more careful about giving a positive ID to something I'm not sure about. IDs for photos in the Bird Forum galleries are sometimes wrong and sometimes re-assigned, and Bird Forum photos often come up early in internet image searches.I wasn't trying to insult Gordon, and I hope he will accept my apology. Here in Japan, I was writing in the late evening after a few beers and feeling cheerful and humorous. I misjudged the way the comments would be received in a time zone eight hours earlier. And probably misjudged the comments themselves. I've always been against the use of emoji to indicate mood and intention, but maybe I should learn to use them.But, as I said, this thread comes up as the third result in a search about Great Egret bill colour, and it's easy to imagine that some casual reader will get it into their head that a Great Egret with a black bill has been seen (or confidently been thought to have been seen) in Scotland in August. The comment about Gordon spreading fake news was meant to be a joke, but the rapidity with which Google has pushed it up the rankings shows how incorrect or tentative IDs can spread. And it has made me realise how 'fake news' can be created in more important areas than a bird ID among a small group of friends.None of the Japan / Asian books that I have (in Japanese or English) shows or mentions a black bill (e.g. Brazil 'Birds of East Asia'). However, the only European bird book I have - Svensson's et al 'Birds of Europe' shows this clearly in the illustrations. Considering how compact it is, Svensson's book contains an astonishing amount of information. I sometimes consult it on birds which are common to large areas of Eurasia, and I wish I had in this case.</blockquote>

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