Thanks to those who replied. I am one of the moderators of the BirdLife
Photographers gallery and we try to make sure that we have the i.d.s correct.
One of the photographers submitted a Little Egret taken in Thailand, so I will
suggest that he puts a note in the comments section to cover the two races.
Sonja
On 21/03/2012, at 9:44 AM, Tony Russel wrote:
> Hi Paul and Sonja. Paul mentions that this Egret is usually seen up north.
> My friends and I have seen them a couple of times at Fogg Dam where the
> water sometimes flows over the dam road, and also at Leanyer Sewage Ponds.
> Hope this helps.
>
> Tony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of Paul G Dodd
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 March 2012 7:28 PM
> To: 'Sonja Ross';
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Little Egret
>
> Hi Sonja,
>
> The race of Little Egret seen in Thailand is the nominate race, egretta
> garzetta garzetta - notable for its completely yellow feet (as though it had
> walked in yellow paint). The usual race seen in Australia is egretta
> garzetta nigripes (sometimes immaculata).
>
> The Asian nominate race does occur from time to time in Australia - usually
> up north, but has been recorded elsewhere. Ruth and I saw one at the Western
> Treatment plant on March 20th last year, and we posted information about our
> sighting on birding-aus.
>
> This sighting resulted in a little bit of email traffic, most notably from
> Mike Carter where he pointed us to an article he had written in conjunction
> with Peter Menkhorst and published in Australia Field Ornithology. I have
> reproduced Mike's email in its entirety below, as I think it is valuable for
> the information on distinguishing the races.
>
> Paul Dodd
> Docklands, Victoria
>
>
> From: Mike Carter
> Sent: Monday, 21 March 2011 4:51 PM
> To: ;
> Cc: Dave Torr
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] 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
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of Sonja Ross
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 March 2012 4:23 PM
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Little Egret
>
> Could someone please tell me if the Little Egret sub-species seen in
> Thailand is the same Little Egret sub-species seen in Australia? Thanks.
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