Laura Erickson’s For the Birds

This handsome little egret, now called the Western Cattle Egret, is not originally native to North America, but found its way here from Africa apparently on its own, first reported in Suriname in 1877, and the first South American nest found in 1950. The first U.S. record was in Florida in 1941. It expanded rapidly from there.

It forages alongside large animals, especially cows here in America, but on other continents alongside camels, ostriches, rhinos, and tortoises. Cattle Egrets just about everywhere have noticed that farmers’ tractors stir up insects, frogs, and other small animals, and so they often follow tractors, too.