Bird Watching - Cattle Egret

Cattle Egret

Compared with other herons, Cattle Egrets are noticeably small and compact. They have relatively short legs and a short thick neck. The straight, dagger like bill is shorter and thicker than other herons. In non-breeding pure white plumage distinguished by the colour of bill which is yellow, not black. They have medium-length, broad, rounded wings.

Adult Cattle Egrets are all white with a yellow bill and legs. In breeding plumage they have golden plumes on their head, chest, and back. Juveniles have dark legs and bill.

Local Names :  Kaana Kathrikappakshi (Malayalam)

                      Doria Bagla (Hindi)

                      Unni kokku(Tamil)

Cattle Egrets stalk insects and other small animals on the ground in grassy fields. They are much less often seen in water than other herons. 

The egret has a hunched posture. The non breeding birds have complete white plumage with yellow bill and yellow-grey legs. In the breeding season, the feathers on the head, breast, crown and back turn an orange-red. The bill, irises and legs may also turn orange red. 

Food is chiefly grasshoppers, bluebottle flies, cicadas and other insects; also frog lizards fish etc. They nest in dense colonies of stick nests in trees or emergent wetlands, often mixed with other species of herons. Nest is untidy twig platform like a crows. eggs 3-5 pale skim-milk blue.

References

The Book of Indian Birds (Salim Ali)

allaboutbirds.org

indianbirds.thedynamicnature.com

Pictures:

chettikulangara, kerala 

Kaikondrahalli Lake, Bangalore ( Non breeding )

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( This picture is taken in Pallikaranai Marshland, Chennai (2019) and one of my favourite) 

The bird is called a Cattle Egret because it is mostly seen with grazing cattle, stalking energetically alongside the animals , running around them and in between their legs, all for seizing insects that are disturbed by the movement of cattle.