122. Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis)

Cattle Egrets are very widespread, occurring around the world in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate areas. In Europe they are distributed patchily around parts of the Mediterranean, and also France and Belgium; they turn up occasionally in the UK as vagrants but we could be seeing more of them in future due to climate change. Some populations of Cattle Egrets are strongly migratory, whilst others only undergo small-scale dispersive movements.

The Cattle Egret in the photo is in breeding plumage; outside of the breeding season they lose their golden feathers and are plain white with a dark bill. Distinguishing features include their small size, short bill and relatively uniformly coloured legs, which turn greyer outside the breeding season. Their preferred habitat is vegetation by water margins - they nest colonially in trees - and also wet and dry grassland; as the name implies they often associate with grazing animals such as cattle.

Cattle Egret, ©RedTail_Panther, via Flickr Creative Commons.

Cattle Egret painting.

Quite a quick one tonight, only half an hour as I also wanted to cram in some Yoga too. Haha only just realised how shonky that back leg is, oops!