Little Egret

Egretta garzetta

The little egret is a species of small heron in the family Ardeidae. It is a white bird with a slender black beak, long black legs and, in the western race, yellow feet. As an aquatic bird, it feeds in shallow water and on land, consuming a variety of small creatures. It breeds colonially, often with other species of water birds, making a platform nest of sticks in a tree, bush or reed bed. A clutch of three to five bluish-green eggs is laid and incubated by both parents for about three weeks. The young fledge at about six weeks of age. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 6,096 times across 63 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 12°C (typically 9 to 14°C, from 5 areas). That holds across 100° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in Europe ranged from 41°N in November to 52°N in December, about 1,300 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.