I'm in the process of sorting bird photos and would just like clarafication on whether these pictures are of great or intermediate egrets. I have trouble telling them apart and all these pictures are of four different egrets at four different locations across the Brisbane reigion.
Intermediate, Great, Great, Intermediate.
SteveM could you explain why they are Great and Intermediate? I'm rather confused, as I was told that the intermediate egrets had the dark beak.
Thanks!
Agree with Steve.
Ryu
Canberra
Aiming for DSLR-quality shots with a bridge camera
Intermediate Egrets never have a black bill, their bill is usually yellow but turns reddish orange with greenish gape in courtship flush.
Great Egrets usually have a yellow bill with black tip(except juveniles) but bill turns black with greenish gape in courtship flush.
Intermediate Egrets get breeding plumes on their back & breast, whereas Great Egrets only get breeding plumes on their back. Photo #4 has breeding plumes on the breast, so that rules out Great.
On Intermediate Egrets the gape(bare skin) below the eye, stops at about centre of eye, whereas on Great the gape goes to rear or past the eye, but have to be wary of out of place feathers partially covering the gape.
Great Egrets have a flatter forehead compared to Intermediate. i.e. the transition from top of bill to head is flatter on Great, but difference is subtle & varies with angle of view.
On Intermediate the neck length is about equal to body length, whereas the Great Egret neck is notably longer than body length, but the kinked s-bend neck can make this difficult to judge.
Thanks heaps everyone: D
Wonderful! Thanks so much for that Steve, has cleared a lot of things up for me :)
I hope you don't mind me asking a question on your thread Sedie.