Lovely White Egret, Ardea alba, incubates its eggs in a setting of verdant ferns with its lovely aigrettes draped all around.
This Great Egret or White Egret, Ardea alba, is nest sitting on a single blue egg (not visible but it is there, just one). The nest of gathered twigs is positioned in a beautiful setting of green ferns in a wetland area. The aigrettes, ornamental back plumes only present during the breeding season, are caught and draped beautifully on the surrounding fern leaves. The lore (skin around the eye above the beak) is distinctly green which is a color deviation from the normal yellow which is present during breeding. The rest of this story is that on a subsequent visit to this nest looking forward to little chicks hatching, I found the nest abandoned and only a broken blue egg left to show there was an egret family in the making. My guess is that the culprit was a Lousiana Heron as they had taken over the fern neighborhood by then.
Size: 5184px × 3456px
Location: Wakodahatchee Wetlands, Florida
Photo credit: © Judy Lovell-Janthina Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: aigrette, aigrettes, alba, ardea, beautiful, bird, colony, egret, egrets, everglades, fern, florida, great, green, heronry, herons, incubating, lore, mating, natural, nest, nesting, plumage, plume, rookery, siting, wading, wetland, white, wild
