birding-aus

Little Egrets

To: "Mike Carter" <>, <>, <>
Subject: Little Egrets
From: "Peter Kyne" <>
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:40:36 +0930
Hi All,

We have recorded the nominate subspecies at Leanyer Sewage Ponds in
Darwin on 20/09/2009 (1 bird) and 28/11/2009 (2 birds). 

Cheers, Pete Kyne and Micha Jackson


-----Original Message-----
From: 
 On Behalf Of Mike
Carter
Sent: Monday, 21 March 2011 3:21 PM
To: ; 
Subject: Little Egrets

Yes Paul, you're quite right about yellow-footed Little Egrets being of
the 
nominate Asian race - that is if there is yellow on the upperside of the

toes as well as the underside because as I'm sure you well know, adults
of 
the Australian race have greenish-yellow soles. In more extreme
examples, 
the birds appear to be wearing yellow booties on or to have walked in 2
cm 
deep bright yellow paint!
This subspecies has previously been seen at the WTP Werribee, Victoria,
and 
at Darwin in the Northern Territory where they maintained a presence for

several years but I don't know the current situation there. For the
first 
records, see:
Carter, M. & Menkhorst, P. (2006), 'Nominate Subspecies of the Little
Egret 
Egretta garzetta garzetta in Australian Territory', Australian Field 
Ornithology, 23: 104-108. Unfortunately I don't have a pdf of this
paper. 
That paper has photographs that show the diagnostic features.
Note that these subspecies also differ in the loral pattern whilst both
have 
mostly black bills in adult plumage. In the Australian subspecies, the
bare 
skin of the lores extends from the eye to the forehead and is bright
yellow 
or orange. In the nominate race the loral pattern is less conspicuous 
because the pale area is restricted to the upper loral region with the
black 
of the bill continuous through the gape almost to the eye. You should
check 
this to confirm that your bird is of the Asian form.

On the other side of Port Phillip Bay we too have been having an
interesting 
time with Egrets at the Eastern Treatment Plant. On 6 March we had our
first 
Intermediate Egret since March 2001 with the only other recent record
nearby 
being one in March 2006 at Edithvale. On that day we had two other
Egrets 
greatly different in size that confused us for a long while but which I
now 
believe were BOTH juvenile Little Egrets in spite of the size
difference. 
Furthermore, we had similar birds on two other nearby wetlands on
Saturday 
19 March. The bills on these birds are black distally but yellow on
basal 
half and some have black, not greenish-yellow soles. All the birds were 
photographed and I have written detailed reports which will be sent to
Dave 
Torr with a view to placing them on the BOCA website. I suspect that
they 
may have bred locally so we are seeing unfamiliar, very young, birds.

Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mount Eliza  VIC 3930
Tel  (03) 9787 7136





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