An egret is a heron

And other avian conundrums.

Welcome to Owl My Children, a monthly newsletter where I soliloquize about birds and try to remember what the sun feels like.

Can you believe it’s almost February? I’m counting down the days until my trip to Ft. Myers, Florida, where I’m meeting up with three birding buddies from Madison. We’ll be there over Superbowl Sunday, which is perfect, since we will hopefully see some superb owls that day!

With warmer weather on my mind and not a lot happening on the birding front in Pittsburgh, I’ve decided it’d be fun to write about a common freshwater and coastal bird family I’ll see in Florida: herons!

A quick anecdote

Lots of non-birders know and love herons. I don’t know why. I can’t remember a specific time in my life when someone told me, “That’s what a heron looks like.” I DO remember going fishing with my sister when we were kids, and a great blue heron sat next to us on the bank of Rocky Fork Lake, and every time we caught a fish she made me feed it to the heron. I remember watching the heron swallow each fish in one gulp. There was also a terrifying moment when we thought the heron might choke because we fed it a really big fish. (According to David Allen Sibley’s What It’s Like to Be a Bird, it can take up to a minute for a large fish to slide all the way down a heron’s throat!)

I would not advise anyone to feed a heron, by the way. Not a good idea to hand-feed a wild bird, even if you’re feeding it a wild fish. Poor fish.

Anyway, as I’ve become a birder, I’ve learned that herons are actually kind of hard to differentiate from other herons and egrets, especially when you’re visiting a warmer climate where lots of heron species intermingle. In Wisconsin and in PA, great blue herons are the most common heron, but there are also different kinds of egrets out there, and I’ve been told by random passersby, more than once, “There’s a heron over there!” only to discover an egret. And sometimes I feel superior and think, “You fool! ‘Tis an egret!”

Turns out, I am the fool, because egrets are herons.

(Photo of a great blue heron, by me)

An egret is a heron, but a heron is not always an egret

When I started researching this topic, I had no idea how contentious it would be. Apparently scientists can’t agree on how some of these birds should be classified. The heron family, Ardeidae, includes both herons (Ardea) and egrets (Egretta). The genus Ardea comes from the Latin for “heron,” and the genus Egretta comes from the Provençal French aigrette, which is a diminutive form of aigron, meaning: “heron.” Cool, super helpful.

From what I understand, Ardea are supposed to be big, and Egretta are medium-sized. Egretta often have some sort of white plumage, but so do some Ardea, so that’s not a key identifier, either. What’s worse, the common name doesn’t always line up with the genus. For example, little blue herons are in the Egretta genus, and great egrets are in the Ardea genus.

So, basically, language is meaningless and nothing matters!

One thing all herons have in common, which differentiates them from, say, cranes, is that they all fly with their necks scrunched up, rather than with their necks extended.

Also! Did you know that herons are sometimes called shitepokes? I literally had never heard of this until I was writing this newsletter, but shitepoke is in Merriam-Webster, defined as “any of various herons.” It describes the etymology of the word like this: “shite + poke; from its traditional habit of defecating when flushed.” LOL. You learn something new every day!

How to identify common herons

Rather than getting bogged down by taxonomy, I think it’s best to focus on a few key species and learn their identifiers. Then you can’t be scoffed at by pretentious birders like me!

The most important things to look for when you’re looking at a heron are:

1. Color and size of bill

2. Color of legs

3. Size

The color of the feathers is important but can be misleading. That’s because juvenile birds might have different plumage colors, and some herons have different adult morph colors as well.

Great blue herons, great egrets, and snowy egrets

The great blue heron is the gold standard of herons. We know them as very large wading birds, with light blue/ gray plumage and a lovely little plume of feathers at the back of the head. They’re the biggest wading birds you’ll see in North America at 3-4 feet tall.

But alas, if you’re in southern Florida, some great blue herons are pure white! (On very rare occasions you might see these in the Carolinas, too.) And they look a heck of a lot like great egrets. The trick is that great egrets are also big, but not as big as great blue herons. The great blue heron also has a larger bill. There’s a helpful tool here where you can do a side-by-side of great egret lookalikes.

If you’re not in the South, and you see a very big white bird, confirm that it has 1) black legs and feet, 2) a yellow bill, and 3) a very long, S-curved neck. If it has all those things, it’s a great egret!

(Photo of a great egret, by me. Note the scrunched-up neck in flight.)

There’s another somewhat common white egret, the snowy egret, to look out for. I’ve mostly seen them on the coast. The snowy egret is much smaller than the great egret, and snowies have a black bill. They have black legs, too, but their feet are yellow! They’re also very sprightly and magical. Much spunkier than great egrets, in my experience.

(Here is a snowy egret showing off its fancy yellow feet, making the great egret behind it very jealous. There’s another great egret on the left side of the photo. Behind them are a bunch of white ibises! See more about those below. Photo by me.)

Other white waders

There’s one common wading bird that I saw in Hilton Head last year that could be confused for a heron, but it is NOT in the heron family at all. White ibises are in the Threskiornithidae family, whose bills are long and curved. And they fly with their necks stretched out, unlike herons! They often mingle with herons, though, like in the photo above.

Another bird that always throws me for a loop is the little blue heron (actually an egret). I didn’t know they could be white! But white they are, when they’re young. They have a two-toned, thin bill and yellow-green legs.

For more photos of these and other wading birds, check out my Flickr album here.

A rainbow siege of herons

There are some really beautiful, colorful herons out there. (By the way, did you know the collective noun for a group of herons is a “siege”?) I’ll highlight three of my favorites here, because I can’t resist.

Green herons

You don’t have to be on the coast to see green herons, but in my experience a lot of people haven’t heard of them. I think this is because green herons are sneaky and small—like, the size of a football. They hide in marshy areas amongst the reeds and are rarely out in the open. But when you see one—boy, what an exciting day. They don’t really strike me as “green” right off the bat, but if you see them flying in the sunlight, you might find yourself saying, “SO GREEEEEEN” and marveling at the shiny quality of their feathers.

(This is the only photo I’ve ever managed to take of a green heron.)

Tricolored herons

Last year in Hilton Head, SC, I was lucky to see a tricolored heron. This bird scared me at first, because I wasn’t sure what it was. People don’t really talk about tricolored herons. Also, I didn’t really see three colors. When I looked it up, I learned that they are supposedly a mix of blue, lavender, and white. The white belly is a distinctive feature of this bird.

(Tricolored heron. Photo by me)

Reddish egrets

The most entertaining heron I’ve ever seen was a reddish egret, spotted with my friend Sarah in San Diego last year. This is a heron that is identifiable by its behavior—it bounces around and causes a lot of general chaos. It makes shadows with its wings in order to confuse fish. It pounces like a cat. Fantastic bird.

These guys can also be found in a pure white form, but their behavior and general messy/shaggy appearance make them easier to ID in that case.

(A chaotic reddish egret. Photo by me)

How big, how blue, how beautiful

In summary: If you don’t live on the coast, and you see a big wading bird at your neighborhood pond or at the golf course, chances are it’s a great blue heron. I follow the “what’s this bird” subreddit and a lot of people post great blue heron photos, convinced that it should be something rarer. And that’s okay. Great blue herons are awesome, and when you see one, you think it’s something special—because it is!

When I first moved to Madison in 2019, I was taking a walk in my neighborhood and came across a great blue heron that was perfectly still and poised on the edge of the lake. I had my headphones in; I was listening to Florence + the Machine’s “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.” I was just getting into birds at that time, and this just felt like one of those magic moments when the universe perfectly aligns. I’ll never forget that.

Submit your bird questions!

If you have any bird-related questions or ID quandaries, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to reply to this email or leave a comment on Substack. I have been thinking about doing an edition of the newsletter featuring bird Q&As. Like a bird advice column, maybe. (To be clear, I would be answering your questions about birds; I would not be giving advice to birds.)

In the meantime, I hope you see some herons, or some superb owls, in the month to come!

Holly