Order: Pelecaniformes

Family: Ardeidae

 

Size:  up to 56 - 72 cm in length

Weight: up to 400 g

 

Key Features: A medium-sized heron with striking white plumage, during the breeding season it develops dense breast plumes and elaborate, long plumes on the back that cascade beyond the tail. While nesting, the intermediate egret has a red bill with a yellow tip, green eye lores (the region between the eye and bill), red irises, and red upper legs. At other times of the year, the intermediate egret has a yellow bill, often tipped with brown, while the iris is yellow and the legs and feet are black. The juvenile is similar to the non-breeding adult.

 

Voice: It is a quiet bird, but emits a deep, rasping “kroa-kr” on take-off when disturbed.

 

Breeding: Timing of breeding varies regionally, but is usually centred around the wet season. During this time, the intermediate egret builds its nest amongst those of other herons and waterbirds, with colonies occasionally numbering as many as several thousand. The nest is a shallow stick platform and is positioned three to six metres above the ground in a tree standing over water or reedbeds. Two to six eggs are laid and incubated for 21 to 27 days.

 

Diet: consists of fish, frogs, crustaceans and aquatic insects. Also feeds on grasshoppers, crickets, bugs and beetles, snakes, spiders, lizards, and sometimes even birds.

 

Habitat: found around shallow inland freshwater areas with abundant emergent aquatic vegetation. This includes habitats such as seasonally flooded marshes, inland deltas, ponds, swamp forests, freshwater swamps, pools, rivers, streams, rice-fields, wet meadows, and flooded and dry pastures near water.

 

Habits: uses the typical heron sit-and-wait strategy of standing patiently at the water’s edge and waiting for prey to come close enough for it to strike with its long bill. It typically forages alone, but at night it roosts communally in groups of 20 or more.

 

Conservation Status: Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. and Sargatal, J. (1992) Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 1: Ostrich to Ducks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

 

McKilligan, N. (2005) Herons, Egrets and Bitterns: their Biology and Conservation in Australia. CSIRO, Australia.

 

Mackinnon, J. and Phillipps, K. (2000) A Field Guide to the Birds of China. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 

Photo Courtesy

Shantanu Kuveskar, Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Intermediate Egret (Mesophoyx intermedia)