A white heron (length 50 cm) with a stout yellow bill and in
the breeding season with buff yellow-orange plumes on head, neck
and back.
Cattle egrets are nowadays distributed over the whole world. But
that is only after a vast migration from Africa to areas where
they did not live in the 19th century. The first sign of their
march on the world was a sight report of this heron along the
Corantyne river (West Suriname, 1880). They must have flown from
Africa over the Atlantic. In the book of Penard on the birds of
the Guyanas (Paramaribo,1910) they is no mention of them. From
1930 on they began with a fast advance over South and North
America, from the tropics to Argentina and Canada. On some places
they outnumber the native herons. For a long time you could
easily spot them in Suriname, but not in neighbouring French
Guyane by lack of cows there. The egrets spend the day in wet
pastures, often near cows. They look for grasshoppers and beetles
that are raised by the cows. Now and then they sit on the back of
a cow, looking for ticks and flies. At nightfall they fly to
their roosting places. They follow fixed routes often via the
rivers: you can see flocks of tens of egrets at the mouth of the
Nickerie and Suriname rivers. They nest in mangrove or in trees
near rivers, sometimes together with other herons.
Each small square indicates the observation of at least one (group) of these birds, the medium ones at least 4 observations on different days and the largest ones 10 or more. The color of each square indicates: blue for coastal area, yellow for savanna and red for rainforest. Biggest group 5500 in Nickerie, 1956(Haverschmidt).
Fotographs by John Dunning, Dominiek Plouvier, Ben de Jong (Paramaribo), Jan Hein Ribot of a bird near water buffalos in Lelydorp in 2006 and Ineke Lissone in Commewijne district. All photographs are from Suriname.
| Distribution in Suriname (explanation) | |
| Coastal area |  |
| Savanna |  |
| Forests | |
| Mountain forests |  |
| Sipalawini savanna | |
Names in
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