Little Egrets

Photographs and drawings by Les McCallum

ISLEWORTH’S Little Egrets

Birdwatcher and artist Les McCallum is happy to see Little Egrets making their home near his

Being a keen birdwatcher I am used to friends and neighbours asking me to identify the bird they have just seen. We normally manage to work it out. Lately, quite few people have been saying “I’ve just seen a young heron” on the Thames foreshore in Isleworth, describing it as small and completely white. Straight away that brief outline of colour, size and location tells me it was a Little Egret and not a juvenile Grey Heron, but they could be excused for getting the identification wrong as Little Egrets are a recent addition to our UK wildlife and wouldn’t be found in most people’s bird guides. My first sighting was some 30 years ago in 1989, while filming a BBC Timewatch documentary on Lundy Island [about Napoleon in exile on Helena Island.] Standing by the cliff top, a large white bird with trailing legs and yellow feet flew along the shoreline. I couldn’t believe it. At the time they were very rare visitors to the UK. I rushed to tell the warden who was coming along on a quad bike and waved him down. He looked at me in disbelief and told me I was mistaken; the last one seen on the Island was 100 years before. It was shot and now resides under a glass dome on the bar of the pub. The next day the egret paraded himself for all to see on the small landing beach.

Population wiped out in Victorian times

They were so numerous in the Middle Ages that there is on record a banquet menu for a newly appointed bishop listing 1,000 egrets plus other birds such as bittern and partridge. It appears they were extremely common, but with the draining of marshes they rapidly declined.

The final straw began with the ‘Plume trade’. In the 1800s they were slaughtered in their thousands for their beautiful long feathers and they gradually disappeared from this country, only to be found in a small area of Southern France. At one stage the neck feather or plumes of breeding adults were more valuable per ounce than gold.

Breeding in England again

Until 1988 the average sightings of little egrets to the UK was just 15 birds, which made them extremely rare. If you look in any bird guide for the UK before 1991 you will not see any reference to this bird. The first recorded breeding happened in 1996 on Brownsea island, Dorset. From then on they have expanded their territory and colonised most of southern England and Wales. They can be seen in our area along the Thames at low tide, Richmond Park, Bushy Park and even on the river Crane next to Cole park allotments, not forgetting the Duke of Northumberland river which is 50 yards from my house. It is estimated that there are now more than 12,00 breeding pairs in the UK, nesting either on the ground in a reed bed or high in a tree close to water. They prefer to nest in a colony with other Egrets or closely the related Grey Heron. They are easy to spot, as they are brilliant white with a long thin black bill and long black legs, but their most unusual feature is their feet, which are bright yellow. Wading in shallow water they shuffle their feet to disturb fish and then with a lightning strike of the bill, pluck the hapless fish from the water.

They might also stand motionless and wait for a fish to swim by before striking, or with wings out-stretched for balance, they will chase fish and pluck them from the shallow water. They eat just about anything: fish, newts, frogs, small birds and even worms. Every time I drive along the busy 316 at St Margarets I think that just yards away in Cole Park allotments there are two Little Egrets feeding in the river Crane. Les McCallum’s drawings and paintings of wild birds are on show at the South Street cafe in Old Isleworth, which offers takeaway coffee, home-made cakes, rolls and ice cream.