Egrets, the lanky, white heron-like birds, usually seen stalking about in fields following cattle, are beautiful and a little bizarre. As their breeding season (the monsoon) commences, both sexes unfurl their shimmering lacy white plumes at each other during courting rituals. The sight seems right out of an illustrated fairy-tale book: images of graceful birds wearing cascades of snowy satin that look like waterfalls captured in slow-mo. Romantic you might think. But the birds’ eyes tell a different story: they remain hard, gimlet-like — and that long dagger bill is ever deadly. Till around the middle of the last century, egrets had a bad time as ladies (and their fashion designers no doubt) would fall head over heels with “aigrette” plumes and feathers and acquire these for hats, capes and dresses. While the poor birds were busy bringing up babies, wholesale massacres were conducted at nesting colonies. Fortunately before the birds were wiped out completely, the carnage was stopped and fashions changed. Free of the torture, some egret species spread themselves across the world, embarking on cross-ocean flights. Here in India you might encounter four species. Among the most familiar would be the cattle egret and the little egret — the former is usually found consorting with cows and buffaloes in the fields, riding bareback on rhinos and buffaloes in the wilds. Cattle egrets, which sport saffron heads during the monsoon, have more or less moved their operations to sticking around cattle: picking off flies, ticks and maggots and snapping up the creepy-crawlies. They have forsaken the wild and prefer domestic animals. It’s said that they have lost the ability to fish in water because their eyes can no longer cope with light refraction as it enters the water, meaning they will miss their target every time. The snowy little egrets on reedy black legs and splayed yellow feet mince around ponds and waterbodies, where they display myriad fishing techniques: I’ve seen a flock of 100 birds standing stock-still in a Bharatpur jheel suddenly start an absurd hopscotch routine — flailing wings and jumping in the water — all together, while occasionally spearing a fish or frog. Then they would all spread their wings in a blizzard of white and fly off to another water patch nearby and repeat the act. Fishing is a lesson in focus and concentration: they will lean forward slightly, like a badminton champion about to serve, eyes fixed on water, then whop, the dagger bill spears forth like the needle of some giant sewing machine catching a tiny silver fish or hapless frog. It’s usually a little difficult to tell the median (or intermediate) egret from the large egret unless they are side by side. The former is about 2-ft tall to the latter’s 3 ft and sports satiny feathers on both its back and breast. The latter wears its white satin on its back, the feathery fountain extending below the tail and has a long black or black-and-yellow dagger bill and long black legs. It prefers being left alone, though nests communally, often with other species such as storks and ibises. Home is made up of a platform of twigs, collected by the male and assembled by the female (and pilfered by neighbours). The three-four young ones raised are fed by regurgitation and grounded at home for around a month and a half. Sibling rivalry is ferocious. Often the littlest ones don’t live to tell the tale — ruthlessly stabbed and evicted by the big brothers and sisters. Egrets are pretty blasé about us humans: a couple of years ago, at Kolkata’s tony Tollygunj Club café, I found little egrets wandering unconcernedly between tables, snacking on leftover namkeen and crumbs, within easy stabbing-distance of your calves. Unfortunately, egrets have also discovered city garbage trucks and dumpyards as great pecking places. They huddle around these, brushing shoulders with large numbers of crows and kites. The egrets here have a sullied plumage, not the pristine white you normally associate with them, this could either owe itself to the grime or just our misplaced psychological association. They are at their most languidly graceful in flight: heads tucked back between their shoulders, translucent white wings beating with unhurried dignity, they make their way across the sky in classical wavy V formations. They are said to travel quite a bit and, in recent years, have spread far across the world. Even have been thought to have crossed the mighty Atlantic Ocean: pretty good going for a species that was once nearly plucked to extinction. Ranjit Lal is an author, environmentalist and bird watcher.
