Hi Mick,
Always good to open a can of worms :)
Interestingly, there were three other Little Egrets in the same pond with
completely black legs and feet. Through bins the feet appeared much yellower,
so I was surprised when I looked at the pictures on my computer - especially
since I was expecting the "walked through a can of paint" look.
I spent hours looking through my Asian field guides, and they were all suitably
vague about how much yellow the feet should have. Pizzey and Knight refers to
the sole of the immaculata/nigripes race being yellow - but a very difficult
field mark. This bird certainly has yellow feet and a yellow tinge to the legs.
I'll be interested to hear other opinions too.
Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria
Sent from my iPhone
On 15/10/2012, at 1:51 PM, Mick Roderick <> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Well, we haven't a decent Little Egret discussion for a while, so why not
> open the can of worms?
>
> I am not so sure that the "nominate" Little Egret posted by Paul and Ruth
> from WTP yesterday is such. I have seen nigripes/immaculata Little Egrets
> look very much like this bird. There was a lengthy discussion on this topic
> back in March 2008 after I saw a similar bird in Sydney. If you dare, see the
> beginning of that thread at
> http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/archives/html/birding-aus/2008-03/msg00456.html
> which includes some images of that bird and comments from many people. Note
> that I never claimed that bird as a potential nominate bird (I discounted
> that notion as I mentioned on the email) - I was just eager for comment on
> 'Aussie' Little Egrets with yellow-tinged feet and legs.
>
> Others expressed that they had seen nigripes/immaculata with legs and feet
> like the Sydney bird (and like the Birdline bird from yesterday). There are
> apparently also differences in the gape (per Mike Carter's comments on the
> 2005 Fogg Dam bird) but this isn't visible in the Birdline image.
>
> I would expect a nominate bird to have completely yellow feet, like (and
> borrowing an analogy here) it had walked through 2cm of yellow paint.
>
> What do others think?
>
> Mick
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