The great egret

The great egret

Three egrets of our llanos have all the body covered with white feathers. They are known by their common names: Snowy egret, Cattle egret and Great egret. The first is small, with black bill and legs and yellow feet. The Cattle egret is also small, with yellow bill and greenish yellow legs. The Great Egret is the largest, it exhibits a bright white plumage, yellow bill and totally black legs and feet.

The Great Egret is the showiest due to its fine and delicate feathers resembling a veil which falls to the back, which is made more evident and showy while courting in the rainy season. Since the Victorian period, until the nineteen forties, the fashion of female hats adorned with the fine Great Egret feathers originated a relentless hunting spree and an intensive trade that put the plains of the Venezuelan states Apure and Barinas in the fashion world geography.

It is precisely in those plains, where these fowl concentrate in communities called rookeries, either to rest during the night or to build their nests, to incubate their eggs and feed their young during the rainy season. It is during this period when couples of Great Egret build their nests, in the canopies of the lowest trees of the inundated places of the savanna or of the caños of the Llanos.

The protection of the colonies and their nests, is achieved by nesting while during the flood. Thus the potential predators can not reach with ease the defenseless chicks. This was not an obstacle to the hunters while the demand kept the pressure and only stopped when the international laws forbade the trade with the egret feathers. Due to that, Great Egrets will still be around us for a long while but not in our hats.