An aid to identifying the 4 larger egretsinAustralia.

["Peter Shute" <>]

I'm not sure I could pick that, especially if there wasn't an Intermediate 
nearby to compare it too, but perhaps with practise ...

Here are a couple of interesting Great Egret photos from ABID:

http://www.aviceda.org/abid/birdimages.php?action=birdimage&bid=647&fid=49&p=21&pagesize=1
shows the neck straight, clearly longer than the body.

http://www.aviceda.org/abid/birdimages.php?action=birdimage&bid=647&fid=49&p=22&pagesize=1
shows the gape.  But in this case it doesn't seem to extend beyond the eye.  Is 
it just a trick of the light?  Even if it is, perhaps this isn't always 
reliable?

Peter Shute

-----Original Message-----
From:    on behalf of Rosemary Royle
Sent:   Thu 22/05/2008 8:56 PM
To:     Robert Inglis; Birding-Aus
Cc:     
Subject:        An aid to identifying the 4 larger egretsinAustralia.

You can also see in these pictures the feature which I think is so distinctive 
- the hugely long snakelike neck. It is curled back in these photos but is 
clearly very much longer.

Rosemary Royle, Wales, UK