Cattle Egrets

By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter

A Mobile County family discovers their property is home to hundreds of cattle egrets...white birds almost two feet tall. The fly in every night and roost as a huge flock in several small trees. At sunrise, they all fly away for the day. Cattle Egrets

Published: Mon, September 17, 2007 - 3:03 pm Last Updated: Mon, September 17, 2007 - 3:41 pm

Jere Hough

In the early 1940s some birds landed in South Florida...perhaps pushed there by a hurricane? They flourished and are now a common sight throughout the Southeast. A not-so-common sight is where they gather in large numbers at the end of the day to sleep safely. But a local family discovered they have just such a location on their property.

Before the sun comes up the huge flock of white birds in the small, bare trees is already stretching wings and chattering. These are early birds who want to catch, well, not a worm, but a grasshopper. They're cattle egrets and they've set up housekeeping on the West Mobile yard of Ricky and Jan Carlsen.

Jan Carlson stands near the birds at sunrise. She explains, "We noticed them around March, and then in April and May, just hundreds of them." They very likely nested here over the summer, now they just sleep here...every night.

Jan Carlsen says the real shows are when they leave in the morning and they fly in before dark. "It's beautiful...it's something to behold," she says.

They head out noisily...in small groups...an almost continuous line of birds. "My mother-in-law wants to come out and watch," says Carlsen, "and my parents come out and watch. My good friends...all our neighbors want to come out and see this."

Where do they fly to? Open fields...with livestock. They are amazingly at home around the hooves of horses...because those hooves stir up bugs! They like to be around cows too. They've even been known to follow big mowers and other implements that stir up bugs in fields.

But home for them is where the Carlsens' live. Carlsen says, "One or two stay all day...to make sure nobody else comes and moves in to their little resort over there."

Meteorologist Jere Hough stands by the nearly empty rookery. The sun is clearly up and shining. He says, "I really don't think the name Cattle Egret suggests just how spectacular this sunrise flight of the birds has been. And to think, they put on an encore performance every sunset."

Cattle egrets are one-and-a-half to two feet tall, and although they do eat fish like other egrets, they nest and sleep near ponds.