The Story
I photographed this Western Cattle-Egret (Ardea ibis) at Hacienda El Japio, near San Esteban de Caloto in Cauca, Colombia, a hacienda that belonged to the Jesuits in the 1600s. Its special link with cattle and other grazing animals, which flush insects as they walk, helped it spread with farming around the world. It nests in colonies, usually near water and often alongside other herons, building a platform of sticks in trees or shrubs.
I made this frame with a Canon R5 and the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender, at 1/750 sec, f/16, ISO 3200, −0.5 EV. In 2023 Colombia’s national parks agency registered Japio’s forest as a private nature reserve to protect its tropical dry forest and the streams that supply local communities.
©2022 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Western Cattle-Egret (Ardea ibis) 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. IUCN does not yet assess the Western Cattle-Egret separately; this is the assessment of Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis), which IUCN treats as including it. Source: IUCN Red List