Great Egret

Look for

A tall, brilliant-white wading bird — long yellow bill, black legs and feet, long white S-curved neck. During breeding, ornate plumes ("aigrettes") stream off the back.

Second-tallest Memphis heron after Great Blue. Elegance in motion.

Size: ~39" tall, wingspan 5 feet.

Listen for

• Mostly silent.
• At heronries: harsh croaks and guttural calls during nesting.
• In flight: occasional low croak.

Where in Memphis

Every wet habitat.

• Wolf River shallows
• Ensley Bottoms + flooded fields
• Shelby Farms lakes
• Mississippi River mudflats
• Meeman-Shelby ponds

Year-round resident in Memphis (at northern edge of year-round range). Numbers swell in summer.

Behavior

• Stand-and-wait fishermen like Great Blue Herons — motionless, then lightning-strike.
• Solitary foragers but colonial nesters — join Great Blue Herons and Little Blue Herons in mixed-species heronries.
• Eat whatever fits in the bill — fish, frogs, crayfish, snakes, small mammals.

Story

Nearly hunted to extinction

In the late 1800s, Great Egrets (and Snowy Egrets) were killed by the hundreds of thousands for their breeding plumes, used in women's hats. Populations crashed by 95%. Heronries were wiped out across the South.

The public outrage sparked one of America's foundational conservation movements:

• 1896: Massachusetts Audubon Society founded (first)
• 1900: Lacey Act passed (bans interstate trade in illegally-taken wildlife)
• 1905: Audubon wardens hired to guard heronries in Florida
• 1918: Migratory Bird Treaty Act ends the plume trade

Today, the Great Egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society — literally on their logo. Every egret you see on the Wolf River is a direct beneficiary of that fight.

The plume trade's deadliest hat season

At peak (1890s), egret plumes sold for twice their weight in gold in European and American millinery markets. A single Florida plume hunter could shoot 100 egrets in a morning.

Range expansion

Great Egrets have expanded northward over the past century — they now breed as far as the Great Lakes, something unimaginable in 1920. Memphis was long at their northern edge; now they're comfortable residents.

Fun facts

• They're the symbol of the National Audubon Society because of the plume-trade fight.
• Great Egrets can live 20+ years in the wild.
• Their black legs + yellow bill distinguish them from Snowy Egret (black bill + yellow feet).
• They're the largest white heron in Memphis.
• They wade up to belly-deep in water but don't swim.