Species: Ardea alba
Great Egret
Species
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Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

A large wading bird with all-white plumage; long black legs and feet; a long neck; and a long, straight, pointed, yellow bill; in breeding plumage, long white plumes extend from back beyond end of tail; average length 99 cm, wingspan 130 cm (NGS 1983).
Classification
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Craniata
Class
Aves
Order
Ciconiiformes
Family
Ardeidae
Genus
Ardea
NatureServe
Classification
Other Global Common Names
Garza Blanca, Guyratî - Garça-Branca-Grande - grande aigrette
Informal Taxonomy
Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Wading Birds
Formal Taxonomy
Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Ciconiiformes - Ardeidae - Ardea - by some authors (AOU 1998).
Ecology and Life History
A large wading bird with all-white plumage; long black legs and feet; a long neck; and a long, straight, pointed, yellow bill; in breeding plumage, long white plumes extend from back beyond end of tail; average length 99 cm, wingspan 130 cm (NGS 1983).
Migration
true - true - true - Migratory in north; extensive post-breeding dispersal occurs prior to southward migration (Palmer 1962). Some banded in the U.S. reach northern Colombia (recorded in September and November; Hilty and Brown 1986). Breeders from the U.S. Atlantic coast are thought to winter in the Bahamas and West Indies (see Byrd and Johnston 1991). Migrants from the north are present in Costa Rica October-April (Stiles and Skutch 1989).
Non-migrant
true
Locally Migrant
true
Food Comments
Eats mainly fishes, amphibians, snakes, snails, crustaceans, insects, and small mammals; commonly forages in marshes and shallow water of ponds, also in fields (Palmer 1962).
Reproduction Comments
Clutch size is 1-6 (usually 3-4) in the north, 2-3 in the south. Incubation lasts 23-25 days, by both sexes. Young fly at about 6 weeks. Nests solitarily or in small to large colonies (Harrison 1979). In Florida, failure of nests was associated with high rainfall (Frederick and Collopy 1989). May lay another clutch if eggs are lost during incubation (Byrd and Johnston 1991).
Ecology Comments
Nonbreeding: may gather in groups but usually forages singly, spreading out over available area. <br><br>In Florida, nestlings infected by the nematode EUSTRONGYLIDES IGNOTUS experienced higher mortality rates than did uninfected nestlings (Spalding et al. 1994).
Length
99
Weight
935
Conservation Status
NatureServe Global Status Rank
G5
Global Status Last Reviewed
1996-11-20
Global Status Last Changed
1996-11-20
Other Status
LC - Least concern
Distribution
Conservation Status Map
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Global Range
H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - BREEDS: in North America locally from southern Oregon and southern Idaho south through California, Nevada, and southwestern Arizona, and from southeastern Saskatchewan, southwestern Manitoba, central Minnesota, southwestern Wisconsin, central Illinois, southern Indiana, southern Ontario, northern Ohio, Vermont (probably), and Maine south through the Gulf states (and west to eastern Colorado, southern New Mexico, and south-central Texas), along both coasts of Mexico (interior locally), and through the Bahamas, Antilles, Middle America, and South America to southern Chile and southern Argentina. Widespread also in Old World. NORTHERN WINTER: occurs regularly north to North Carolina, southern U.S, and California; south through breeding range to southern South America; also Old World. In the U.S., areas with the highest winter densities include the Chassahowitzka NWR on the Gulf coast of Florida, the Sabine NWR on the coast near the Louisiana-Texas border, the southern Colorado River near the Imperial and Cibola refuges, and Humboldt Bay NWR in northern California (Root 1988). Wanders irregularly outside usual range; a few times to Hawaii.
Global Range Code
H
Global Range Description
>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)