1. Appearance of the egret
Medium-sized wading bird, body length 52 to 68 centimeters. The beak and feet are long and black, the toes are yellow-green, the neck is very long, and the whole body is white. During the breeding season, two narrow, soft, spear-like ornamental feathers are attached to the occiput. Dorsal and anterior neck are also covered with growing raincoat feathers. The eyes are first pink.
The beak, neck and legs are long and white. Summer plumage with two narrow and soft spear-like feathers on the occiput, like two braids behind the head; shoulders and back with long straw raincoat feathers with scattered branches, stretching backward to the tail end; the base of the stem is strong, to the end of the feather branching is thin and scattered; the lower part of the front neck is also a long spear-like ornamental feathers, down to the foreparts. The winter plumage is also creamy white, but the crown feathers of the head, shoulders, back and foreneck of the Demoiselle or spear-like ornamental feathers have disappeared, only a few individual foreneck spear-like ornamental feathers remain. The iris is yellow, the mouth is black, the naked part of the eye is pink in summer and yellow-green in winter, the tibia and tarsus are black-green, the toes are yellow-green, and the claws are black.
2. Life characteristics of egrets
Migration: partly resident, partly migratory. Breeding populations north of the Yangtze River are mostly summer migratory birds, moving south of the Yangtze River in the fall for wintering, and then moving to the northern breeding grounds in mid- to late March in the spring. Populations breeding south of the Yangtze River are mostly non-migratory and are resident birds.
Habitat: preferring clusters, often in small groups of 3 to 5 or more than 10 in the shallow water at the water's edge. At night, they form large groups of dozens, hundreds or even thousands in their habitat, but during the day, they are scattered into small groups. Often stand on one foot in the water, the other foot curled under the belly, the head shrinks to the back of the hunchback, a long time to stay still. When walking, they walk lightly and steadily, appearing calm and unhurried. When flying, the head is shrunk back to the back of the shoulder, the neck is curved downward to form a bag, the two feet are straightened backward, protruding far behind the tail, and the two wings are slowly drumming to fly. Every day after sunrise, they fly in groups from their roosting place to the foraging ground, and the distance can be up to tens of miles. In the evening, they fly in groups to the paddy fields near their roosting place and rest on the small trees on the mountain slopes, and then enter the woods and bamboo forests together after forming a large group. At night, they roost in groups on top of tall trees in small dense forests, and often roost in the woods and bamboo forests next to houses or gardens, sometimes together with night herons and cattle herons. They are bold and not afraid of people.
Food: It feeds on various kinds of small fishes, eels, loaches, frogs, shrimps, leeches, dragonfly larvae, mole crickets, crickets, ants, grubs, larvae of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera, aquatic insects and other animal foods, and also eats a small amount of grains and other plant foods. It forages during the day and rests at night. Often fly to the habitat from several miles to dozens of miles of shallow water on the shore of the water wading for food, and sometimes also waiting in a certain place to wait for food and follow the activities of the herd or foraging in the nearby meadow, and occasionally seen perched on the backs of cows and pecked at the parasite on the body of the cattle.