Bird Watching Curaçao – HOME

There are many species of egret on the island of Curaçao that are white. And it can sometimes be very confusing which species you are looking at. Our main tips to distinguish species, are always to look at the colour of the bill (both the point and the base) and the colour of the legs and feet. In most cases these will point to the correct species. It will be a little bit more difficult though when you spot a deviant morph of a species, which means that the species normal coloration is absent and you are looking at a white variety of the species. Colour deviations happen in many species, and herons are no exception.

The bird in the picture is the Reddish Egret, a species of which the name ultimately indicates it’s normal coloration as being reddish. However the individual pictured is snow white. And no, it is not a juvenile (a fact is that some heron species start out as white juveniles slowly changing into their nominate coloration).

This morph occurrence is a genetic thing reasonably rare to find in comparison with the birds with normal coloration. On Bonaire the white morph of this species occurs a little more frequently than on Curaçao and we even observed a Reddish egret couple consisting of a ‘normal’ coloured individual and a white morph with a juvenile bird which appeared to be having an intermediate plumage.

On Curaçao seeing this white morph is rare. But possible. So always keep your eyes open for this great find.

Reddish egret (white morph) – Roodhalsreiger (witte variant)
Curaçao