The Story
I photographed this Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) at the Raudal del Guayabero, near San José del Guaviare, Guaviare, Colombia, in February 2021. It is the American counterpart of the very similar Little Egret of the Old World. The genus name comes from aigrette, the Provençal French word for the Little Egret, a diminutive of aigron, heron. Fossils of the species have been found in Late Pleistocene deposits of the Talara tar seeps in Peru. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/8000 sec, f/16, ISO 1250, −3 EV. An hour’s climb above the Raudal leads to rock paintings of tapirs, lizards and ritual dances, which have not been dated exactly but may be 7,000 to 12,600 years old.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) belongs to the family Ardeidae (Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025), with the population trend listed as increasing. Source: IUCN Red List