Great Egret - Ardea alba

During a quick outing to Bodega Bay last Thursday (cold and windy!) we stopped at Porto Bodega, the sport-fishing boat pier best known to birders as the departure site for pelagic trips to Cordell Banks. Best sight there was a Great Egret in high breeding plumage, showing day-glo green lores. Too good to pass up for a photo, although the bird was a bit too close for a full body portrait.

Many species in  Heron family ( Ardeidae) show dramatic color changes of the bare parts early in the breeding season, often referred to as "high breeding plumage". Often the color, fades quickly after the eggs are laid. Both sexes usually show these changes, likely indicating a hormonal readiness for mating, although the one above may have arrived late to the party, as most Great Egrets by now are tending to young in nest. Hard to find a good physical explanation of the color change in my searching. The color is not from pigments, so it's probably a function of  structural colors, or increased blood flow, of a combination of the 2.

Speaking of nesting Egrets, at the same Venice Rookery island where we watched the Anhingas there was a small number of Great Egret nests with chicks of various ages. These 3 nestlings may have been practicing how to best entice an adult to regurgitate food by pulling on the bill, or more likely just asserting sibling dominance, which can be brutal. They hatch asynchronously, so the larger chick on the right will has a distinct advantage.

Most of the adult Great Egrets there were still in striking breeding finery, hard for a bird photographer to resist….

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Btw, still time to view nesting egrets at the West Ninth St. colony in Santa Rosa (Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, and Black-crowned Night Herons).​ Link is from Colin Talcroft's great website site for birding in Sonoma County.