The nesting season is well underway at the "rookery" at the
Houston Audubon Smith Oaks Sanctuary at High Island, TX. This is an outstanding place to view several types of herons, and cormorants nesting.
The egrets are especially spectacular in breeding plumage. The long filamentous feathers (aigrettes) were nearly the cause of their extinction a century ago, as they were in demand for ladies hats. Egrets were slaughtered on the breeding grounds for these feathers.
The Great Egrets are most numerous and well into nesting. When the pairs meet at the nest they are obviously excited. In this photo you can see that they both have the small feathers on their necks elevated (hackles up), something I had not noticed before.
There are a large number of Roseate Spoonbills also at the rookery. Although most were in their spectacularly colored breeding plumage, they had not (at our last visit) begun to make nests. They seemed contend to stand around eying one another.
Although Roseate Spoonbills are beautiful at any time, in breeding plumage their heads are more strongly patterned and their tails and wing feathers more deeply colored.
The Neotropic Cormorants are also very numerous nesters in the Smith Oaks rookery. Their appearance is not so different in breeding plumage. But, they develop the fine white line of feathers that outlines the yellow throat patch. The pointed corner of this patch and the fact that it does not extend above the bill is a mark that distinguishes these from the Double-crested Cormorant.
Posts
