Here is another shot of the Great Egret that ambled around my neighborhood a few days ago. (He is standing in my front yard; the grayish background is my next-door neighbor's driveway.)
Adults in the breeding season display a color change in and around the eye; changing from the usual yellow to a rather vivid, minty-color with just a touch of yellow green.
With this egret, the color is less mint-colored and more yellow-green than with most others. I wondered why and came up with two plausible reasons:
1) As I noted in my original egret thread, this egret may be an adolescent and not yet able to attain the fully adult green eye patch coloring.
2) Or it could be simply how far along in the breeding season this egret is - maybe it was before or after the peak, so the eye area color change might not have reached its peak, or had already peaked and is gradually disappearing.
Perhaps it's a combination of the two.
Adults in the breeding season display a color change in and around the eye; changing from the usual yellow to a rather vivid, minty-color with just a touch of yellow green.
With this egret, the color is less mint-colored and more yellow-green than with most others. I wondered why and came up with two plausible reasons:
1) As I noted in my original egret thread, this egret may be an adolescent and not yet able to attain the fully adult green eye patch coloring.
2) Or it could be simply how far along in the breeding season this egret is - maybe it was before or after the peak, so the eye area color change might not have reached its peak, or had already peaked and is gradually disappearing.
Perhaps it's a combination of the two.
Don't blame me - I didn't vote for him!
Nikon D7500 with Nikkor 18-300 mm; PSE2021, PSCS5
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