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Little Egret | Egretta garzetta
Kleine zilverreiger | Garceta común
The best-known white heron of the region: slender, with a black bill, black legs and yellow feet. It breeds in colonies from Morocco to Iraq and can be seen on passage and in winter along almost all waters and coasts.
Voice
A hoarse, croaking kraak or gark on take-off; gurgling and cackling noises at the colony.
Recording: Julien Bottinelli — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
Medium-sized and slender, all white, with a thin black bill, bare grey-green lores (briefly reddish during courtship) and black legs with bright yellow feet. In the breeding season it has two long, narrow nape plumes and fine ornamental plumes on the back and breast. Juveniles have a paler bill base and greener legs. A dark morph is very rare. An active hunter that runs, stirs the water with its feet and flies with slow, supple beats.
Confusion species
The white morph of Western Reef Heron (Egretta gularis) has a heavier, slightly drooping yellowish-brown bill and often yellow further up the legs; hybrids occur. Cattle Egret (Ardea ibis) is smaller and stockier, with a short yellow bill and dark legs. Medium Egret (Ardea intermedia) is larger, with a yellow bill and all-black legs. Great Egret (Ardea alba) is much larger, with a long kinked neck.
Habitat
All kinds of shallow water: marshes, riverbanks, rice fields and irrigated land, fishponds, sewage ponds, salt pans, lagoons and tidal flats. Breeds in mixed colonies with other herons in trees, bushes or reeds, often in eucalyptus or tamarisk.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the habitats of North Africa and the Middle East.
Range and movements
Breeds in Morocco (including Merja Zerga and the Souss), northern Algeria, Tunisia and locally in Libya; in Egypt numerous in the Nile Delta and Nile Valley. In the Middle East it breeds in Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq (mainly the southern marshes). In Arabia it is mainly a passage migrant and winter visitor, with local breeding. On passage and in winter it is widespread throughout the region, including along the Red Sea and the Gulf to Oman and Yemen, where it feeds alongside Western Reef Heron; northern birds cross the Sahara to West and East Africa. Beyond the region it breeds in southern and central Europe, Africa, South and East Asia and Australia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In the Nile Delta the breeding colonies in trees along canals and in villages are easy to find. In Israel the fishponds of the Hula and Beit She'an valleys and the coastal plain hold large numbers all year. At Eilat and Aqaba it makes an excellent comparison with Western Reef Heron.
Conservation status
Not globally threatened. It recovered from a severe decline caused by the plume trade around 1900; in the region it benefits from irrigation and fishponds, but colonies suffer from disturbance, felling of nest trees and pollution.
Scientific name
Egretta garzetta | (Linnaeus, 1766)
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 as Ardea Garzetta; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Egretta was introduced in 1817 by Forster. Egretta comes from Provençal aigrette, the name for the little egret, a diminutive of aigron 'heron'. garzetta is the Italian name for this heron. The specimen the first description was based on came from the Orient.