7 March 2022

How do you identify a snowy egret among the six white wading birds in North America?

• Great egret (Ardea alba)
• Snowy egret (Egretta thula)
• Immature little blue heron (Egretta caerulea). Young are white, adults blue
• White morph of the reddish egret (Egretta rufescens)
• Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis)
• White ibis (Eudocimus albus) Not a heron/egret

Snowy egrets are the only one of the group whose feet don’t match their legs. Yellow Feet + Black Legs. You can see it even in flight.

The color combination helps them forage. While their black legs are probably ignored by their prey, the “yellow feet catch the eye of fish and other creatures, drawing them closer or stalling them so the egret can strike,” per Bird Watcher’s Digest.

Here are three of the snowy egret’s five foot-fishing techniques.

Foot stirring:

Foot probing: in slow motion.

Foot dragging: Dangling their feet in the water to make the fish rise up from the depths.

Snowy egrets have 21 techniques for catching fish, the broadest repertoire of all North American herons. They have a lot of tricks up their sleeves.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)