Meet the Great One

I don’t mean Wayne Gretzky this time.

This time it is the Great Egret of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

We already had recorded several photo sessions with this bird at Chidlovski Blog Chidlovski. Most of them were made with telephoto lens when the egrets were far away in the marches. At the Parker River, the birds were much closer – 30-50 feet away from me and it was a good time to study this tall, thin and elegant creature.

The name comes from the French word aigrette, which means “ornamental tufts of plumes”. For a long time, the egrets were hunted to near extinction for their long white plumage. Now protected, the egrets feel safe in the places like the Parker River. They slowly stalk shallow wetlands searching for small fish to spear with their long sharp bills.