Date: 9/4/24 10:01 am From: Adam Winer via groups.io <awiner...> Subject: Re: [SFBirds] Western Cattle Egret - Crissy Field
Throwing something out there... while the odds are extremely high that any
Cattle Egret in San Francisco is a Western Cattle Egret, I don't think it's
*quite* 100%.
Eastern Cattle Egret has been recorded on Midway Island (nw Hawaiian
Islands), and while Midway is a long, long way from California, it's
amazing that it got to Midway in the first place! Cattle Egrets have a
remarkable dispersal ability. It's not inconceivable that an Eastern
Cattle Egret might make its way to North America. Unfortunately, the
identification criteria for a non-breeding Cattle Egret are tricky -
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318600580_Subspecific_identification_and_status_of_Cattle_Egret - you'd be looking for a longer-legged, longer-billed bird, and that's
something most easily accomplished with a side-by-side comparison. And
that's cruelly unlikely to be an option here in SF.
(Nice find, Keith!)
-- Adam
On Wed, Sep 4, 2024 at 7:43 AM Keith Maley via groups.io <keith.maley=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
