Great Egret Video

Walked up on a Great Egret in Santa Cruz, California at a local city park. He was feeding in a little trickle of a stream. I tried to hand-hold my little video camera at 34x zoom. Bad idea. I'm nowhere near that steady, and the on camera image stabilization is either primitive or non-existent. Otherwise we love our little Samsung and it was the cheapest bonified camcorder at Circuit City. I shot this at the lowest resolution and then compressed it way more for web use, but you can still generally see the bird. First time I've shot with a camcorder in years, first time editing in about ten years, first time use of iMovie and first take at a voice over, so, it is what it is.

Anyway, despite the shaky cam you get a decent enough look at a great egret and I did a voice-over explaining some of the differences between a Great Egret and the smaller Snowy Egret which looks very similar. Main differences: Great Egret is bigger and taller, has black feet which match his legs. Great Egret has a longer neck with a "hinged" appearance; not quite the smooth s-curve of the Snowy Egret. Snowy Egret has bright yellow feet. That's all I know, I'm no bird expert so take it with a grain of salt.