The Snowy Egret
"No other bird in this country can claim such a dramatic story as can the
Snowy Egret -- a story of a beautiful bird brought to the brink and then
saved."
-- Roger T. Peterson.
A hundred years ago there were a great many snowy egrets (Leucophoyx
thula), thousands of them. They were nesting as far north as New
Jersey and possibly Long Island, which was before the days of the feather
trade. Both the tall American egret and the dainty, little snowy are adorned
with sprays of beautiful white plumes that flow gracefully from their backs.
The demand for these feather plumes, called "aigrettes", to trim women's
hats, nearly wiped out the species. At the turn of the century the egrets
were making their last stand.
Like many other water-loving birds, snowy egrets prefer to nest in
communities (rookeries) of hundreds of individuals. These rookeries were
separated by long distances, so it was easy for the plume hunter to shoot
them out, one by one. Once the location was known, the rookery was doomed.
If the parents were killed, the young ones died too. When the plume hunter
departed, not one bird, young or old, was left alive. It was only the white
sprays, most beautiful during the breeding season, that were wanted. These
were ripped from the dead bird's back. The broken body was left to float on
the murky water of the swamp to decay, causing a stench until the white
bodies slowly sank in the mire.
Roger T. Peterson comments: "The passenger pigeon, the great auk, and the
Labrador duck are gone. No power on earth can replace them. The snowy egret
barely missed the same fate, but fortunately, public opinion was strong
enough to outlaw the feather market, and laws were passed. As everyone
knows, laws without enforcement are of little use, so Audubon (Society)
wardens were placed on guard over the few remaining birds. During those
first few years, two of the wardens were killed, and others wounded in gun
battles with the agents of the feather trade."
There are two species of native white egrets -- the American, a large and
slender bird with yellow bill and dark legs; and the Snowy, a smaller bird
(length 20" and wing spread 28") with a black bill having a yellow base, and
having black legs with yellow feet, often referred to as "golden slippers".
Alexander Sprunt, Jr., in a National Geographic article, describes the
interesting breeding behavior of the snowy egret: "In Spring, male snowies
sound raspy threats and attack each other with snapping beaks and flailing
wings. Then the victor goes a-courting in his glorious nuptial raiment.
Crest up, body bent forward, back plumes streaming out behind in wispy
up-curves, he parades about the female. As she displays her airy finery, he
spirals up perhaps a hundred yards, then plummets. He tumbles over and over,
righting himself at the last moment for a graceful landing. His spotless
white coat and those waving "aigrettes" present an unforgettable image of
ethereal grace and beauty."
The nest is a crude platform of sticks, loosely put together in a small
tree or bush, usually on an island rookery. The three to five pale, bluish
eggs hatch in about eighteen days. Both parents share in the incubation of
the eggs and the feeding of the young. The diet includes small fish, shrimps,
frogs, aquatic insects and other small invertebrates of the swamp and marsh.
The snowy egret has a habit of shuffling its feet in the shallow water to
stir up desired food.
There are two races, or subspecies, of the snowy egret. Egretta thula
thula breeds in the southern United States, chiefly along the coast
from North Carolina to Chile and Argentina. Brewster's Egret is the western
form, which breeds from Utah and California to Lower California. This race
also wanders north in the late summer. Most of the Southern egrets wander
northward, sometimes as far as Canada, after their breeding season is over.
-- Marie L. Atkinson
REFERENCES:
Field Guide to Western Birds
Roger Tory Peterson
National Geographic Society
Allan D. Cruikshank.