Wildlife : Similar Species : Little blue Heron

Identification Tips:

• Length: 22 inches Wingspan: 41 inches
• Sexes similar
• Medium-sized long-legged long-necked wader
• Usually holds neck in an "S" curve at rest and in flight
• Bill long and pointed
• Dull green legs

Adult alternate:

• Blue-gray black-tipped bill
• Blue-gray belly, back and wings
• Chestnut head and neck
• Shaggy neck plumes

Adult basic:

• Blue-gray black-tipped bill
• Head and neck blue-gray like body
• Lacks shaggy neck plumes

Immature:

• White body plumage
• Blue-gray tips to the outer primaries visible from below when bird is in flight
• Gray lores
• Black-tipped bill usually with blue-gray base, but occasionally yellow or flesh
• In their first spring or first summer, immatures start gaining the adults' dark plumage and can be mottled with blue-gray and white.

Similar species:

Adults are similar only to Reddish Egret, which is much larger and bigger-billed, and has a paler reddish neck, shaggier neck, and head plumes and blue-gray legs. Immature Snowy Egrets are similar to immature Little Blues but have black legs with a yellow stripe up the back, yellow feet, and yellow lores, and lack the blue-gray primary tips, and, usually, lack the two-toned bill. Adult white morph Reddish Egrets can be similar to immature Little Blues but are much larger, have blue-gray legs, shaggy neck and head plumes and a pink base to the bill. Immature white morph Reddish Egrets can be separated by the larger bill, bluish legs, and lack of blue-gray primary tips.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.