The Great Egret (Ardea alba) is a large bird measuring 85–102 cm with a wingspan of about 140–170 cm — roughly the size of a Grey Heron but slimmer and more elegant in its proportions. The plumage is entirely snow-white year-round. The bill is bright yellow for most of the year but darkens toward the breeding season, when the bird also grows long, decorative plumes on the back, known as aigrettes, that gave the species its name; the legs and feet stay dark, almost black, throughout the year. The long neck is often held in a marked S-curve, and in flight the long legs trail well beyond the tail.
Largely a silent bird, though a rasping, hoarse croak and a gurgling cackle can be heard at the nest and within breeding colonies, and a short, sharp "kraak" — somewhat lower and softer than the Grey Heron's — may be given when the bird is flushed. The Great Egret is one of the species that has expanded most dramatically in Sweden in recent decades, from a rare southern vagrant to a now regularly breeding bird; it favours shallow, open water — flooded meadows, reed-fringed lakeshores, river mouths, shallow bays and ponds — and is now seen regularly in Skåne, along the Halland and Blekinge coasts, and at the large lakes Vänern, Vättern and Hornborgasjön. The first confirmed Swedish breeding records came during the 2010s, and numbers have grown steadily since, with more birds also now overwintering along the south coast rather than migrating away. It breeds colonially, often alongside Grey Herons, in trees or dense reedbeds; the female lays 3–5 pale blue-green eggs, incubated by both parents for about four weeks, with chicks fledging at roughly six weeks. Hunting with classic heron technique — standing motionless or wading slowly before striking — it takes fish, frogs, aquatic insects, crustaceans and occasionally small rodents and lizards.
Read about this species in Swedish →