Joe's Wildlife Blog: Searching for Egrets & Herons from Above

In the last post, I mentioned that there would be another post coming soon. That is what will be in today's post.

We heard from a few local people that some cattle egrets had been spotted in our area. The next morning we were up and off in search of where they had last been spotted. We walked down a few country lanes but the best thing that we saw was a pheasant. We also somehow mistook a white plastic bottle for them as well. Eventually, we gave in and tried somewhere else to film some normal herons (coming later in the post). However in a field (the same one in which we saw the Egyptian goose) next to the road were the egrets, their white plumage standing out against the green grass. We must have accidentally startled them as they all soon took off. Then a pair of them landed on the other side of the field. They were quite far away so the photos aren't very clear. However, once looking back at the photos I realized that they aren't cattle egrets - they are little egrets. The local people must have mistaken them. The nice thing about these egret photos is that they are close to home, unlike the other ones we took in Italy.

We were quite pleased that we had managed to track down our local (and rare) egrets. After that, we went somewhere else nearby to film some more footage with our latest piece of tech - a drone. I got a drone for Christmas but haven't filmed any wildlife on it - until now. Once we were set up we sent the drone over a pool. Roosting in the trees on the side were multiple grey herons - my favorite bird. The first one we saw on it was in the reeds. Maybe it was fishing? Before I put the photos on I want to make it clear that all these photos were taken from a good distance. That way the herons aren't disturbed. if you ever want to take drone footage of wildlife it is important to zoom in on it like I have - even if the photos come out a bit blurry.