I was on a prowl for a reported Snowy Egret that had moved somewhere from Duncan's Cove the day before. The ditches alongside Sandy Cove Road and the beach at Sandy Cove were my first target areas followed by the salt marshes from Sambro Head to West Pennant. I was surprised to find instead a Cattle Egret working the roadside ditches and road shoulder along Sandy Cove Road. In many parts of the world the Cattle Egret is as common as our European Starlings or Brown-headed Cowbirds especially around and on cattle. In Nova Scotia it is an annual regular but quite uncommon and turns up in the oddest places but usually arround farms. This is probably the tamest of the egrets but it kept a discrete distance nonetheless. My gripe this time is that all my photos are hand held at relatively slow shutter speeds for a 600mm lens, hence the lack of definition in some of the photos. This is nonetheless the first Cattle Egret I've seen along this road, although Great Blue Herons commonly work the roadside drainage ditches for green frogs.

Cattle Egret

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