Mike Powell

This morning I went shooting at Cameron Run, a tributary stream of the Potomac River in Alexandria, VA. I frequently commute along a road that parallels this stream and have often seen large white wading birds as I drove by. Today I decided to investigate and see if I could get some photos and determine if they were herons or egrets or some other kind of bird.

I did manage to get some shots of the birds in the water and even in the trees, but learned how difficult it is to get a proper exposure with a pure white bird. I’m pretty confident that the birds are Great Egrets (Ardea alba), which are also known as Great White Egrets. A passerby with binoculars (who seemed to know what he was talking about) told me that the orange beak is one of the characteristics that distinguishes the egret from the heron. If you want to know more, there is lots of interesting information about the Great Egret in an article on the website of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The Great Egret is a really impressive looking bird, so much so that it is the symbol of the National Audubon Society, according to Wikipedia.  The Cornell Lab article points out that Great Egrets were hunted nearly to extinction for their plumes in the late nineteenth century, sparking conservation movements and some of the first laws to protect birds.

I was struck by the fact that the Great Egret roosts in the trees and seems to enjoy doing so with other egrets. In one cluster of trees I saw three egrets that appeared to be grooming themselves—they definitely did not seem territorial. I was impressed too by the wingspan that I got to see when I startled one of them and he flew up to a nearby tree.

Now that I know what kind of birds these are and where they hang out, I’m sure I’ll be back to watch them and, hopefully, to photograph them.

Great Egret in a tree

Great Egret in the shade

Great Egret fishing in the stream

Reflections of a Great Egret

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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