DARK MORPH LITTLE EGRET

A very rare visitor captured with good expo,detail and stride...well done.

Beauty shot

Somdeb


I like all your background detail. As you say it is a well composed record shot


Graeme

Rare seen and well captured...

Excellent shot with details

On the ID, not sure what to make of it. If seen in the USA it would be passed off as a young Tricolored Heron.

I never heard of a dark morph Little Egret. Is that distinct from Western Reef Egret, with which Little Egret is sometimes considered conspecific?

Mike Danzenbaker wrote:On the ID, not sure what to make of it.  If seen in the USA it would be passed off as a young Tricolored Heron.  

I never heard of a dark morph Little Egret.  Is that distinct from Western Reef Egret, with which Little Egret is sometimes considered conspecific?

Mike,
I have very little knowledge about identifying a sp. so cannot detail on denominators topmost birders/ ornithologists like BIKRAM GREWAL Sir (called the Birdman of India), or Shubhankar Patra Sir used to immediately ID it as Dark Morph Little Egret. But TIM INSKIPP Sir, surely he needs no introduction, has referred it as Western Reef Egret Intermediate Morph. One of my esteemed Birder Facebook friend Shantanu Bhattacharya on Facebook has shed some light, I quote - "as the bill is black , unlike the yellow bill of the western reef egret, and some other features are also not matching. Moreover its very unusual to get a western reef egret in the interiors of the subcontinent as it is basically a coastal bird- found in western coast of India." and given the ID as DARK MORPH LITTLE EGRET. You can check my Facebook profile if you get time.
Thanks for your input.
Sincerely,
SOMDEB BISWAS

Western Reef Egret it is, and not a dark morph either.
Nice pose though.