The Story
This Great Egret (Ardea alba) stood watch at the Yahuarcaca lakes outside Leticia, in Amazonas, Colombia, its white plumage and yellow bill bright against the dense greenery. It is a large, all-white heron found across most of the tropical and warmer temperate parts of the world, and the birds of the Americas belong to the subspecies egretta. It builds its nest in trees, in colonies close to water. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I used a Canon R5 with the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender for this one, at 1/1000 sec, f/16, ISO 800, −1 EV. Communities on the Yahuarcaca lakes, such as San Sebastián and La Playa, manage their fishing under community agreements backed by the Conservar Paga payment-for-conservation programme.
©2023 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Great Egret (Ardea alba) 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 stable. Source: IUCN Red List