The Little Egret, Egretta garzetta is a small white heron. It is the Old World counterpart to the very similar New World Snowy Egret.
There are at least two subspecies of Little Egret. The nominate subspecies E. g. garzetta occurs in Europe, Africa and Asia. E. g. nigripes breeds in Indonesia and Australasia. Those in Australia are sometimes thought to represent a third subspecies E. g. immaculata.
Several other egret taxa have at times been classified as subspecies of the Little Egret in the past but are now regarded as separate species. The Western Reef-Egret, Egretta gularis occurs on the coastline of West Africa (race gularis) and from the Red Sea to India (race schistacea). The Dimorphic Egret, Egretta (garzetta/gularis) dimorpha is found in East Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros and the Aldabra Islands.
The adult Little Egret is 55–65 cm long with an 88–106 cm wingspan. It weighs 350–550 grams. Its plumage is all white. It has long black legs with yellow feet and a slim black bill. In the breeding season, the adult has two long nape plumes and gauzy plumes on the back and breast. The bare skin between the bill and eyes becomes red or blue. Juveniles are similar to non-breeding adults but have duller legs and feet. The subspecies garzetta has yellow feet and a bare patch of grey-green skin between the bill and eyes, whereas nigripes has yellow skin between the bill and eye and blackish feet.
Little Egrets are mostly silent but make various croaking and bubbling calls at their breeding colonies and produce a harsh alarm call when disturbed.
Its original breeding distribution was large inland wetlands and coastal wetlands in warm temperate parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
In warmer locations, most birds are permanent residents; northern populations, including many European birds, migrate to Africa and southern Asia. They may also wander north after the breeding season, which presumably has led to this egret's range expansion.
The Little Egret has now started to colonize the New World. The first record there was on Barbados in April 1954. It began breeding on the island in 1994. Birds are seen with increasing regularity and have occurred from Surinam and Brazil in the south to Newfoundland and Quebec in the north. Birds on the east coast of North America are thought to have moved north with Snowy Egrets from the Caribbean.
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