WESTERN REEF EGRET.

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Another lovely bird,

Thanks karyl Quigley....

.WESTERN REEF EGRET.....WATERCOLOUR...The Western Reef Heron (Egretta gularis) also called the Western Reef Egret, is a medium-sized heron found in southern Europe, Africa and parts of Asia. It has a mainly coastal distribution and occurs in two plumage forms, a slaty-gray plumage in which it can only be confused with the rather uncommon dark morph of the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta) and a white form which can look very similar to the Little Egret although the bill tends to be paler and larger. There are also differences in size, structure and foraging behaviour. There have been suggestions that the species hybridizes with the Little Egret, and based on this, some authors treat schistacea and gularis as subspecies of Egretta garzetta. Works that consider the Western Reef Heron as a valid species include the nominate gularis and schistacea as subspecies. It occurs mainly on the coasts in tropical west Africa, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf (Iran) extending east to India. It also occurs in the Lakshadweep Islands and Sri Lanka where breeding was once recorded at Chilaw. The nominate subspecies breeds in west Africa from Mauritania to Gabon. Birds may also be found off the mainland such as in the Canary Islands. Small numbers breed in Spain. Subspecies schistacea is found from the Red Sea coast east round the Indian coast. Breeding colonies are known from the east coast of India around Pulicat Lake. They occasionally occur further inland. The Western Reef Heron (nominate subspecies) occurs as a vagrant in North America, South America and the Caribbean islands. Based on the growing number of records it is suspected that they may establish breeding colonies in Brazil. Several records around 1980-1990 in Germany, Austria and France have been attributed to birds that escaped from an animal dealer in Mittelfranken. These birds stalk their prey in shallow water, often running or stirring the water with their feet or flicking their wings to disturb prey; they may also st