Wildlife Wednesday - Eastern Great Egret

Last week I did a few bird surveys and I noticed that many birds seemed to be scarce when I was out counting, and arrived afterwards. How did they know!?! Except for the Black Swans on the river who tested my counting skills - 105 of them. I think that's more than my count for them last year.

Anyway, when I wasn't doing a count I saw an Eastern Great Egret. It was majestic.

I was driving out of the carpark at the beach and it stood in the grass at the edge of the road. About 1.2 m tall, it had its eye on something and stalked very slowly towards it, allowing me time to stop the car and snap photos out the window.

I've seen lots of the smaller cattle egrets, and I've often wondered if  I was mistaking them for the Great Egret, but now I know that there is no mistaking them. This bird stands about twice or three times the size of the cattle egrets.

And a great thing about this bird - I knew it, as soon as I saw it - and an even better thing - when I read the Birdlife website's description and it said the Great Egret had a distinctive kink in its neck, my heart temporarily sank, and then I looked at the photos again and there was that kink. I'm always excited by kinks, but this one was special! I got an id right :) :) :)