Did you recognize the handsome bird in last week’s puzzler? It is a Reddish Egret.
The rarest egret in North America, this bird is found in extreme southern Florida and along the Gulf Coast to Texas. It can also be found in coastal Mexico and the West Indies. Have you been lucky enough to see one? They have a dark and a white morph though I have only seen the dark one so have no photos of the white morph.
The reddish egret has a wingspan of 46-48 inches and is 27.6-31.5 inches tall. As you can see from this photo, they have a distinctive black-tipped beak that is pink at the base and blue black legs and feet. (Wasn’t it nice of this one to pose so perfectly for me?)
Reddish egrets are smaller than great blue herons (3.2-4.5 feet long with a wingspan of 5.5-6.6 feet) but larger than the little blue heron.(29 inches long with a wingspan of 41 inches)
Here is the next puzzler–a small creature that makes a BIG noise.