Posted by Phil Pickering (208.46.229.74) on June 09, 2002 at 23:38:25:
Me again (sorry). Just took another glance at this interesting bird and noticed something that hasn't been mentioned yet - there appears to be a sort of extensive plume "stubble" on the SIDES of the upper neck where the plume bases would be on a Reddish Egret. Little Blues have plumes on the back of the head/neck, but seem to typically look pretty smooth (plumeless) on the sides of the neck. Gotta think this stubble is pretty tough to explain on a Little Blue. Is this an unusually worn adult Reddish Eg? The coverts do look pretty stringy.
For whatever it's worth, I looked at bill shape and pattern in 20+ photos, and it seems too variable in both species to be of much use with this particular photo. Some Little Blues show this much dark/light contrast in photos, both can look like they have a very slight downcurve to the lower mandible like this bird, the amount of dark is variable in both, and the head/bill proportions and proportional bill length are remarkably similar between these two.
Also, although it isn't really a field "mark", I really like Gary's insightful point about apparent behavior - there appear to be furrows in the water behind both legs, probably indicating that the bird is walking fairly directly without hesitation - more consistent with Reddish Egret.
Cheers,
Phil