Plumed Egret
英文名：Plumed Egret（学名：Ardea plumifera），是鹈形目鹭科鹭属的鸟类。与亚洲中介鹭（A. (i.) intermedia）和非洲黄嘴鹭（A. (i.) brachyrhyncha）同列。体长约56至70厘米，全身羽毛洁白。繁殖季节时，胸部和肩部会长出细长的白色丝状羽，喙变红或橙色，眼周皮肤转绿，胫部变为红色，跗跖呈黑色。
Plumed Egret
56-70 cm. Smaller, daintier, more graceful than Great Egret: extended head and neck about equal to body-length. Head rounder, bill shorter and deeper: line of gape extends to just below eye, not past it. Non-breeding: bill yellow, occasionally reddish; legs black below 'knee'; yellow, grey or reddish above. Unlike Great Egret, may have a wisp of fine plumes on breast. Breeding Plumage: splendid and unmistakable; a veil of long, filmy, erectile plumes on back and breast; bill and legs temporarily flush deep rose-red; facial skin pea-green. Often solitary in s., but in e. and n. Aust. forms open companies to hundreds. Forages in taller vegetation than other egrets. Hunts quietly; peers with neck extended, stirs with foot. Flies with quicker wingbeats than Great Egret, legs protrude less far: 'knee-joints' well in under tail; often flies in random bunches.
Taxonomic Note Previously known as Intermediate Egret Ardea intermedia now separated into three species as Medium Egret Ardea intermedia (southern Asia), Plumed Egret Ardea plumifera (Australia) and Yellow-billed Egret Ardea brachyrhyncha (Africa).
- Similar Species
- Cattle Egret, nonbreeding: smaller, more chunky and 'jowly'; wingbeats quicker. Great and Little Egrets, vagrant Medium Egret.
- Voice
- rattling croak.
- Habitat
- freshwater wetlands, pastures and croplands, tidal mudflats, floodplains.
- Breeding
- Nov.-Jan. in se. Aust., March-May in n.
- Nest
- small, untidy, flattish cup of sticks: 3-10 m high in fork; usually with other egrets in riverine forest, swamp woodland; mangroves.
- Eggs
- 3-5; pale green.
- Range & Status
- common, widespread breeding species in better-watered parts of coastal n. Aust., from Kimberley (WA) to c. Brisbane (Q), ne. and central coast NSW. Generally uncommon in se. Aust., but breeds Macquarie Marshes and Murray Valley (NSW-Vic.) and irregularly at Bool Lagoon (se. SA). Scarce visitor s. Vic.-s. SA; scarce and irregular in WA s. of Kimberley; casual Tas., Norfolk I.; vagrant NZ. Winter visitor to PNG from Aust. Dispersive; part-migratory to se. Asia, PNG and Solomons.
