Hi Mike et al.,
You are right that I was a bit too adamant since I only got to see this one
picture. Looking at this particular picture, however, the bird still doesn't
look like a Little Egret to me. Maybe a look at some more pictures would help!
Cheers,
Nikolas
----------------
Nikolas Haass
Sydney, NSW
________________________________
From: Mike Carter <>
To: Nikolas Haass <>; BIRDING-AUS <>
Cc: Tim Dolby <>; Bill Ramsay <>
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 2:23 PM
Subject: Little Egret dark morph on Gold Coast, Qld
Interesting that you can be so adamant Nikolas,
just by viewing a single image. I can see nothing odd in the jizz (but jizz
is always a subjective value anyway), bill shape looks typical to me, as
does bill colour. Leg length and leg colour vary within this species and in my
experience are within the range expected in juvenile Little Egret. I
do perhaps have two advantages over you. Firstly, I have seen
additional images of this bird and that I recently went through the
exercise of having to ID difficult Little Egrets at the Eastern Treatment
Plant here in Melbourne. I wrote a discussion paper on that problem and
possibly posted it somewhere, perhaps on BOCA's web site or BIRDING-AUS. I
must direct you to it or send you a copy. I have also had the task of
distinguishing, describing and analysing Western Reef Egret on the Cocos
(Keeling) Islands.
Regarding my previous posting on why it isn't a
Pied Heron I failed to make clear that that species is considerably smaller
than
Little Egret whereas this individual was similar in size to another,
a typical bird, also present.
Mike Carter
30 Canadian Bay Road
Mount Eliza VIC
3930
Tel (03) 9787 7136
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