Great Egret at dusk
Ardea alba
Great Egret · Everglades National Park · 6 February 2026
A Great Egret at dusk in the Everglades, the largest of the white egrets in North America and one that very nearly wasn't. It fishes the shallows across the whole of the South, and the Everglades rookeries were the centre of the plume trade that nearly ended it.
Plume hunters supplying the hat trade brought the species close to extirpation in the United States by the early 1900s, killing breeding adults for the long plumes grown only in that season and leaving chicks to starve in the nest. The outrage over the killing helped found the National Audubon Society, whose symbol the bird has been ever since.
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