Summer Shoreline, Part 4 - An Egret in the Cove

Although Great egrets can be a common sight on mudflats and marshes, prior to this summer I'd never seen one on the rocky coast of Halibut Point.
 

Of course I'm always  happy to find beautiful novelties here even if they're readily seen elsewhere. In the back of my mind was the question, "Is this just a lucky moment, or is there a reason it's here?"

The bird soon made the answer apparent. It had spotted food. 

 

Its prey appeared to be a cunner, a type of fish we boys used to catch easily on these shores but which seemed to have disappeared in my grandsons' era.

 

We used to consider cunners delicious but bony, with dangerously sharp dorsal fins.


 

The egret flipped the fish around to swallow it head first, fins flattened.

It was already scanning the shallows for another target.

 

Lifting this great body into the air required a great span of wings. It began a slow flight, with its neck retracted, which is characteristic of egrets, herons and bitterns. This distinguishes them from storks, cranes, and ibises, which extend their necks in flight.

  

Large numbers of Great egrets were killed around the end of the 19th century for their plumes to decorate fashionable hats.

 

In 1895 Cousins and Boston socialites Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall, disturbed by the destruction of the plume hunters, organized a series of afternoon teas with other wealthy local women, encouraging them to avoid feathered garments. They also sent literature asking these women to, in Hall's words, "join a society for the protection of birds, especially the egret." Later that same year they founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Its resurgent numbers have made the Great egret a conservation success story. This image of it in flight was ultimately chosen as the symbol of the National Audubon Society .