Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis
Lagos, Nigeria. December 2004

The Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis is a very widepsread species found from southern Europe (increasingly it looks like it may be well on its way to permanently colonising Britain) to Japan, throughout most of Africa, is increasingly rapidly thoughout Canada and the US (from its initial foray into the eastern states), and is found from Central and South America from southern Canada to the Guyanas and northern Chile, northeast Argentina and parts of Brazil.

Nigerian birds belong to the nominate form B. ibis ibis: adults have red/reddish bare parts in breeding plumage, and - as the photos below show - non-breeding birds are duller.

I took all the following photos on the same day in December in the garden of the Lagos Sheraton Hotel. In some parts of the range the Cattle Egret can be quite a wary species but in Lagos they are very habituated to people and follow eg gardeners around waiting for insect prey to be turned over or disturbed, feeding much like Blackbirds or American Robins would do on suburb lawns throughout the UK or USA, and even picking through the detritus us humans so casually discard…