Snowy Egret in flight
Egretta thula
Snowy Egret · San Diego · 6 March 2026
A Snowy Egret in flight over a San Diego lagoon, the black legs trailing and the yellow feet showing. Snowies are birds of the coast and the marsh across the southern United States, and Southern California's lagoons hold them all year.
The black bill and legs against bright yellow feet - "golden slippers", in the old birding shorthand - are the quickest way to separate this species from the larger Great Egret, which has an all-black leg with no yellow at all. Snowy Egrets forage by stirring the bottom with one foot to flush prey, a more active technique than the patient stand-and-wait of most herons.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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