Last week, I headed out to Westerly Creek to checkout the latest arrivals. From the parking area, I headed down to the creek and across the bridge where Westerly Creek meets up with the Sand Creek. Here were the usual birds that I had been seeing during the last month, including Robins, Widgeons and Mallards. After I had turned back, two Snowy Egrets landed in the creek. I managed to make an image of one egret who was visible on the far bank.
After returning to the parking area, I headed to another location along Westerly Creek, where there is a pond alongside the creek. Having spotted an egret in the pond, I made my way down to the pond. When fishing (or hunting), Snowy Egrets typically stir up the floor of a pond, hoping to dislodge some live tasty food!
In the image above, the bubbles below the egret above, were caused by the egret when stirring up the floor of the pond. After finding a tasty morsel, this egret soon decided to investigate the cattails along the far bank of the pond.
After a while, this egret returned towards the center of the pond.
I soon learned that there was a second egret located on my side of the pond. The second egret was obscured by the cattails in front of me.
Here is another image of the same egret. Snowy Egrets can easily be identified — they have yellow feet or “yellow slippers”.
This afternoon we headed out to the South Platte River. After walking south from the parking lot we heard many birds, but they proved difficult to find. We head back, and then continued north. What luck, we found a Snowy Egret at the weir.
Yes, the Egrets are back for the season.