By Mary Reid Barrow

Photo by Judi Knouf

Judi Knouf was surprised to come across a variety of diners taking advantage of tasty marsh specials in First Landing State Park last week.

She stopped, mid-jog, to take this photo and others of the array of wading birds that got word from the Yelp Bird Line about the causeway buffet on the trail to the Narrows.

Not only did Judi capture snowy egrets, great egrets and a white ibis in the foreground but a great blue heron standing aloof from the crowd in the back!

“Sighting today on the Narrows Trail,” Judi wrote. “Four different species hanging out. Birdie Daycare????”

I almost missed the ibis that I assumed was a snowy egret because its head was under water in all but one of Judi’s photos!

When I walked the same trail later I only found a few snowys and a great egret. The sassy snowys were high stepping around the marsh, dancing and darting about for whatever meal they could stir up with their feet from the marshy bottom.

Meanwhile, yards away, a stately great egret waited patiently for a meal to swim to it!

While the white ibis with its big orange down-curved beak and the great blue heron with its size and gray-blue coloring are obviously distinct species, you might not necessarily think that of the great egrets and the snowy egrets. It’s easy to think the snowys are over active teenagers and the great egret, their patient daddy!

Though you want to think they are father and youngsters, you see the snowy egrets’ black beaks, as opposed to the yellow beak of the much bigger great egret. Other differences are not so easy to see.

Though both have black legs, great egrets have sedate black feet and snowys have show-off, bright yellow feet, often described as “golden slippers.” (You might detect a hint of yellow on the foot of the snowy behind.)

You also can see a few wispy feather on snowys and as breeding season comes round their plumage becomes feathery and beautiful. According to Cornell Lab All About Birds, snowy egret breeding season plumage was once so prized by the fashion industry that the birds were hunted almost to extinction.

Both snowys and white ibis range along our coast but we don’t see them quite as often as the great egret and great blue heron that also range in inland neighborhoods.

But one thing is for sure, all four know a good restaurant when they see one!