"An egret is any of several herons, most of which are white or buff, and several of which develop fine plumes during the breeding season. Many egrets are members of the genera Egretta or Ardea which contain other species named as herons rather than egrets. The distinction between a heron and an egret is rather vague, and depends more on appearance than biology.

"Several of the egrets have been moved around from one genus to another in recent years: the Great Egret, for example, was traditionally classified as either a member of Casmoderius, Egretta or Ardea.

"In the 19th and early part of the 20th century, some of the world's egret species were endangered by relentless hunting, since hat makers in Europe and the United States demanded massive numbers of egret plumes and breeding birds were killed in locations all around the world.

"Several Egretta species, including the Eastern Reef Egret, the Reddish Egret and the Western Reef Egret have two distinct colors, one of which is entirely white. Little Blue Heron has an all-white juvenile plumage" - or so it says here.

These appear to be egrets, in the muck of an old silted-in canal in Venice California, Thursday, May 18, 2006, early afternoon. Which sort they are is a mystery, but they provided a chance to experiment with the telephoto lens and various shutter speeds.

If you use any of these photos for commercial purposes I assume you'll discuss that with me.  

There is a copyright notice at the bottom of this page, of course.

These were shot with a Nikon D70 - lens AF-5 Nikor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED or AF Nikor 70-300 mm telephoto.

They were modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0
The original large-format raw files are available upon request.

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