Egrets Wonder

by James Williamson

Title

Egrets Wonder

Artist

James Williamson

Medium

Painting - Watercolor

Description

The egret, a graceful creature painted in profile. The artist has focused the composition on the egret’s white appearance against a dark background. The color of its feathers at all ages and seasons. Beautiful, agile and buoyant in flight the longest and slenderest of all herons.

Artist James Williamson, ASMA
Signature Member of the American Society of Marine Artists

The artist has rendered the graceful egret’s evanescent breeding plumes with the use of fine brushes and sensitive strokes. The gossamer, thin, fine and light breeding plumes appear white and fragile depicted in sheer delicacy. Portraying the egret’s elegant curves and plumes with fluidity and keenness of feeling and artistic sensibility. A watercolor painting of fine quality, exquisite and refined in perception, feeling and execution. Creating an accurate and beautiful watercolor interpretation.
The egret portrait combines strength and fragility. Blending the graceful neck, strong body, powerful yellow bill, long dark legs feet and sharp claws providing a contrast to the delicate, fine breeding plumes.

Egret
The elegant Great Egret is a dazzling sight in many a North American wetland. Slightly smaller and more svelte than a Great Blue Heron, these are still large birds with impressive wingspans. They hunt in classic heron fashion, standing immobile or wading through wetlands to capture fish with a deadly jab of their yellow bill. Great Egrets were hunted nearly to extinction for their plumes in the late nineteenth century, sparking conservation movements and some of the first laws to protect birds.
Size & Shape
Great Egrets are tall, long-legged wading birds with long, S-curved necks and long, dagger-like bills. In flight, the long neck is tucked in and the legs extend far beyond the tip of the short tail.
Color Pattern
All feathers on Great Egrets are white. Their bills are yellowish-orange, and the legs black.
Behavior
Great Egrets wade in shallow water (both fresh and salt) to hunt fish, frogs, and other small aquatic animals. They typically stand still and watch for unsuspecting prey to pass by. Then, with startling speed, the egrets strike with a jab of their long neck and
Great Egret Breeding adult
Breeding adults show thin, wispy nuptial plumes on body; Large, all-white egret; Long, pointed yellow-orange bill
The Great Egret
The Great Egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society, one of the oldest environmental organizations in North America. Audubon was founded to protect birds from being killed for their feathers.
Not all young that hatch survive the nestling period. Aggression among nestlings is common and large chicks frequently kill their smaller siblings. This behavior, known as siblicide, is not uncommon among birds such as hawks, owls, and herons, and is often a result of poor breeding conditions in a given year.
The pristinely white Great Egret gets even more dressed up for the breeding season. A patch of skin on its face turns neon green, and long plumes grow from its back. Called aigrettes, those plumes were the bane of egrets in the late nineteenth century, when such adornments were prized for ladies’ hats.
In mixed-species colonies, Great Egrets are often the first species to arrive, and their presence may induce nesting among other species.
Great Egrets fly slowly but powerfully: with just two wingbeats per second their cruising speed is around 25 miles an hour.
Though it mainly hunts while wading, the Great Egret occasionally swims to capture prey or hovers (somewhat laboriously) over the water and dips for fish.
The oldest known Great Egret was 22 years, 10 months old and was banded in Ohio.
Habitate Great Egrets live in freshwater, brackish, and marine wetlands. During the breeding season they live in colonies in trees or shrubs with other waterbirds, ranging across the southeastern states and in scattered spots throughout the rest of the U.S. and southern Canada. The colonies are located on lakes, ponds, marshes, estuaries, impoundments, and islands. Great Egrets use similar habitats for migration stopover sites and wintering grounds. They hunt in marshes, swamps, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, impoundments, lagoons, tidal flats, canals, ditches, fish-rearing ponds, flooded farm fields, and sometimes upland habitats.
Food The Great Egret eats mainly small fish but also eats amphibians, reptiles, birds, small mammals and invertebrates such as crayfish, prawns, shrimp, polychaete worms, isopods, dragonflies and damselflies, whirligig beetles, giant water bugs, and grasshoppers. It hunts in belly-deep or shallower water in marine, brackish, and freshwater wetlands, alone or in groups. It wades as it searches for prey, or simply stands still to wait for prey to approach.
Behavior The Great Egret walks with its neck extended and its wings held close to its body. In flight, it is graceful and buoyant, with its neck tucked back against its shoulders and its legs trailing behind. Great Egrets form monogamous pairs each breeding season, though it’s not known whether the pair bond lasts through multiple years. Early in the breeding season adults grow long plumes on their backs, which they raise in courtship displays. Males perform most of the displays, which can involve preening the wings, ducking the head, holding and shaking twigs in the bill, and stretching the neck. Nestlings compete fiercely with each other, and dominant chicks sometimes end up stabbing the youngest siblings to death. The chicks also threaten and attack intruders.
Conservation Great Egret populations increased across most of their range from 1966 to 2014, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, though there appears to have been a decline in Canadian populations. The North American Waterbird Conservation Plan estimates that there are over 180,000 breeding birds on the continent, and rates them at least a 5 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score. Great Egret is not listed on the 2014 State of the Birds Watch List. More than 95% of the Great Egrets in North America were killed for their plumes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Plume-hunting was banned, for the most part, around 1910, and Great Egret populations quickly began to recover. Since the 1930s, the egrets have had to contend with major habitat loss and degradation, as well as threats like contaminated runoff from farm fields or sewage treatment. However, their populations appear stable. Compared to other egrets and herons, Great Egrets seem to be unfazed by habitat loss on a localized scale, even in extremely altered landscapes like the Everglades. Since Great Egrets are large, very mobile birds with flexible habitat preferences, environmental changes may be affecting them at a larger scale that has yet to be studied.
Great Egret
A tall, stately white wader of quiet waters. Common, especially in the south, it may wander far to the north in late summer. Nearly wiped out in the United States in the late 1800s, when its plumes were sought for use in fashion, the Great Egret made a comeback after early conservationists put a stop to the slaughter and protected its colonies; as a result, this bird became the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
Nesting
Probably first breeds at age of 2-3 years. Sometimes nests in isolated pairs, usually in colonies, often mixed with other wading birds, cormorants, Anhingas. In mixed colonies, Great Egrets tend to nest high. Male selects nest area and displays there, at first driving away all other birds, later courting females. Courtship displays include calling, circular display flight, stretching neck up with bill pointed skyward. Nest: Site is in tree or shrub, usually 10-40' above ground or water, sometimes very low in thicket or marsh, sometimes up to 90' high in tall cypress. Nest (built by both sexes) a platform of sticks, sometimes substantial.
Egret, any member of several species of herons (family Ardeidae, order Ciconiiformes), especially members of the genus Egretta; Most egrets have white plumage and develop long ornamental nuptial plumes for the breeding season. Their habits are generally like those of other herons, but some perform elaborate mating displays involving the plumes.
The name egret, or aigrette, is also used to refer to these plumes; they are highly prized as ornaments in Oriental ceremonial dress and were formerly used in the Western millinery trade. The high prices paid for the plumes, along with the vulnerability of the birds, who nest in large breeding colonies, resulted in the near extinction of egrets because of unscrupulous hunters. Changes in fashion and strict conservation measures have since allowed their numbers to increase.
Egrets typically frequent marshes, lakes, humid forests, and other wetland environments. They are wading birds and catch small fishes, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and crustaceans in shallow waters. They build large, untidy nests in trees and bushes or on the ground.

The great white egret, Egretta (sometimes Casmerodius) alba, of both hemispheres, is about 90 cm (35 inches) long and bears plumes only on the back. The American populations of this bird are sometimes called American, or common, egrets.

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February 4th, 2018

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