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Hi, I just joined this forum.  About 25 years ago, I saw and took movie footage of an egret which I saw in the water on Plumb Beach, just east of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NYC.

 It looked and was the size of a Snowy Egret or Immature Little Blue Heron.  However, it was feeding like a Reddish Egret, flapping its wings and running in every direction.  Of course, NYC is way out of the range of a Reddish Egret.

I long ago had my movies copied to video, and recently to my computer and DVD.  I have a short wmv clip, which is over 2 MB, and a few jpg's which I "exported" from the video.  I tried to upload the jpg's, did manage to get one here.  I don't know where the others might be.

 Any ideas about this bird? Kami

Well this is an egret, but what kind?  Well form the pics you took it has a black bill, so that rules out the Great Egret and Reddish Egret.  That leaves the the Snowy Egret and an Immature Little Blue Heron.  Now the book I am using shows that a juvenile Little Blue Heron has black primaries and the bird in the picture has white primaries.  So I think your bird is a Snowy Egret.  It is possible for a Snowy Egret to be in Brooklyn.

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Good Luck Birding
Josh

Thanks for your input.  It's definitely possible for a Snowy Egret to be in Brooklyn, which isn't far from the Jamaica Bay WLR.  But I've never seen a Snowy Egret feed like that, running around and flapping its wings. 

Kami

The reddish egret, which has a typical "dance" that looks just like this, has a white morph, but they are hard enough to find in Florida, let alone Brooklyn, NY. It's legs are greyish-blue, which these seem to be, but unfortunately there isn't enough detail in your picture to really tell for sure,  That would be quite a sighting indeed for Brooklyn, but I'm not sure enough to call it.  Snowy egrets are much more common, but they don't behave this way.

I have to say, this has all the signs of a White morph Reddish Egret. Sometimes you never know what will show up in a state. During the floods of 1993, Iowa got its first (and only) Reddish Egret.

Interesting pic. Im going to do some more research about the feeding styles. What date was the pic taken?

1980, give or take a year.

I posted part of the video clip of this bird on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82qQ1vUDGUc

Interesting video. I hardly know what to say.  The video looks like quintessential reddish egret behavior.  I've never seen a snowy egret do that.

I'm totally thrown by it.  At the time, there were no other egrets or herons in the area.  Maybe it was an escapee from one of the zoos.

Thanks for all the replies.

I ran that photo by a birding friend of mine who has far more knowledge than I, and he couldnt say for sure, but based on behavior, bill size and thickness, that it looks good for Reddish Egret.

Immature Little Blue Heron is ruled out by behavior, bill color, and lack of dusky wingtips.

 Has the New York bird records committee seen this pic?

I didn't know there's a New York bird records committee.  Since the sighting was so long ago, I don't know if anyone would be interested, or if others saw it.

I just looked at the video tape which included this bird.  The shots I have on this tape kept going between Sheepshead Bay, Plumb Beach, and two sections of the Jamaica Bay WLR.  It doesn't change anything about the ID, but just for the record, I now think I saw it in the WLR. 

It is most likly not a reddish egret.  There range is far further south and the bill color is not correct.  I would say a Snowy Egret.

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Good Luck Birding
Josh

Sorry, but I have to disagree here. You can't see much detail in the picture, but what you can see is certainly consistent with (though not diagnostic of) non-breeding reddish egret, which does not have the typical pink bill with the black tip that the breeding bird has. You are correct that NY is not in the normal expected range of this species, but they have indeed been reported there on occasion. We'll never know for sure, but the dancing behavior caught on video is much more convincing than reliance on the bill color in an admittedly poor-resolution photo.

I agree that the behavior shown in the video is interesting but ultimately I think it's inconclusive.  Reddish Egrets frequently "canopy feed" by spreading their wings and shading the water.  Here I see a lot of jumping and staggering, but not really canopy feeding.  Snowy Egrets can get pretty jumpy too, although not usually quite as frenetic as on this video. 

What bothers me most about the Reddish Egret conclusion is that the back of the legs look yellowish to me.  That's wrong for Reddish Egret, but just right for Snowy Egret, especially immatures or non-breeding birds that have a strip of pale yellow up the back of the tarsus.  As far as I know, Reddish Egret should always show black or very dark gray legs.

A few other points worth considering.  The Reddish Egret has a larger head and heavier bill cf. Snowy Egret.  This bird seems small headed to me; the head barely thicker than the neck and the bill seems slim.   Also the neck seems thin.  Doesn't Reddish Egret have a thicker neck than this bird?

The white morph of the Reddish Egret is fairly scarce on the Gulf Coast.  Sibley says 2-7% I'm not sure of its status elsewhere, but it is accidental at best in New York.   There is a previous record at Jamaica Bay 18–26 May 1991 documented by Burke.  Ref. below:

That was a typical dark morph bird.  So the odds against a white morph Reddish Egret in Brooklyn are astronomical.  And when the leg color looks wrong and the head, bill and neck do not seem to be shaped right, and when the behavior is interesting but not conclusive, I prefer caution in this case.  Cast my vote for Snowy Egret.  

Burke, T. A.. 1998. Reddish Egret. Pp. 129–130 in Bull’s birds of New York State (E. Levine, ed.). Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, NY.

   

 

 

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Joseph Morlan
Fall Birding Classes in San Francisco start October 28