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Snowy Egret — printable fact sheet
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Snowy Egret
Egretta thula
The snowy egret (Egretta thula) is the white heron with black legs and startling yellow feet, and those feet are working tools rather than decoration. It is one of the most behaviourally inventive foragers among wading birds: ornithologists have catalogued well over twenty disti…
Did you know?
- At the turn of the 20th century, Snowy Egrets were nearly hunted to extinction for their beautiful plumes, which were used to decorate ladies' hats.
- Snowy egrets vibrate their bright yellow feet in the mud to panic prey into moving, one of more than twenty documented foraging techniques. Their breeding plumes were once worth more by weight than gold, and the trade in them triggered the birth of the American conservation movement. They often shadow other animals, from ibises to foraging stingrays, feeding on whatever is flushed. The great egret, not the snowy, is the bird on the National Audubon Society's logo, but both were plume-trade victims.
What I learned
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