Yellow-billed Egret

Egrets belong to the family of herons - wading birds that hover around the water and feed off small fish and other small aquatic animals. These are probably the most well-known fish-eater among us. Also, these are very common near Shimoga.

I have regularly seen Yellow-billed Egrets in Matthur, mostly in our cricket field and fields used to dry arecanuts. Of course, the bird sanctuary at Mandagadde is famous for these birds, where they come to nest every year. Unfortunately the sanctuary is half-sunken in the Tunga river after the Gajanur dam's height was increased recently, but you can still see a small island in the middle of the river where these birds flock. You can see more than 50 of these birds in about 2-3 trees.

Although these egrets are famous for catching and eating fish, there is one very funny story told by K.P.Poornachandra Tejaswi of a fish scaring an egret - and almost killing a kingfisher!! Apparantly Tejaswi witnessed a fairly large fish swimming quite close to the banks of the river and trying to attack (literally) a small kingfisher sitting at the edge of the water - kingfisher escaped just in time. A little later the same fish tried to attack an egret, but the egret was cautious, and moved to a safer place before the fish can come close enough to the bird. You can read this interesting tale in detail either in "Parisarada Kathe", or in "Minchulli" - I can't remember which of the books it is.

Scientific name for this bird is Ardea intermedia.

A flying Egret I shot in Mandagadde