UTSW Rookery
Pushed Out
Great egrets lay 1 to 6 eggs laid at 2 to 3 days intervals. So the chicks are of varying ages with a big size difference between the oldest and youngest. There is a 76% mortality rate over the first year with most of that coming during the nesting and fledging times. Part of nature's way of keeping the population numbers regulated and increasing the odds that at least one chick makes it for a breeding pair of great egrets. (information source: https://www.beautyofbirds.com/greategrets.html) This photo is of a great egret nestling that most likely was pushed out of the nest by one or more siblings. This was the natural way of things and not caused by human interference so I let it be and documented it. It was hard for me to do but I tasked myself to be objective and non interfering in my project to document the activity during breeding season at this rookery. There are some people that make trips to the rookery for the purpose of finding too young babies on the ground and taking them to a rehabilitator. Didn't know any of them at this time but I do now and would probably let them know if I ran into this again.
Great Egret Nestling (Ardea alba)
UT Southwest Medical Center Rookery
great egretegretwhite egretaquatic birdaquaticwater fowlwadersdallas texasardea albaRookerySouthwest Medical Center Bird Rookerybreeding seasonSMC rookerychickgreat egret chickegret chicknestlingegret nestlinggreat egret nestlingfuzzypushed outlikely fatality
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