Riverside's White Sentinels: How to Tell Your Egrets Apart

Long-legged, long-necked, big white birds are hard to miss. You’ll see them along the Santa Ana River, on golf courses, and at the edges of the Fairmount Park lakes. But you’ll also spot them flying overhead, eyeing the fish in a backyard koi pond, or perched atop phone poles near Riverside’s canals.

In Riverside, such birds aren’t storks, and they aren’t cranes. They’re egrets—members of the heron family, Ardeidae. Birds in that family fly with their necks folded into an “S,” while storks and cranes fly with their necks extended. Seeing a crane in Riverside is very rare (I once caught sight of cranes migrating overhead in my 40-plus years living here), and seeing a stork would be beyond extraordinary. The nearest population of our native Wood Stork, at the south end of the Salton Sea, is sparse.

Riverside is home to two different white egrets: the Snowy Egret and the Great Egret. Distinguishing between them can be a challenge for the beginning birder. Both are big and white. Both are egret-heron shaped. Both species are relatively common and easy to spot in and around Riverside’s wetlands.

Riversiders are lucky—we have only two big white egret species to worry about. Elsewhere in the United States, other white members of the heron family can make identification trickier.

Depending on your view of the bird in question, separating the Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) from the Great Egret (Ardea alba) is trivially easy, straightforward—or, rarely, frustratingly challenging. It’s trivially easy if you have one of each species in view, either nearby or through binoculars. Their sizes are radically different. The Snowy Egret is smaller; bill tip to tail tip, the bird is about two feet long. For reference, that’s about twice as long as a pigeon. Great Egrets are huge—about 50% longer than the Snowy. The Great is just a bit smaller than the Great Blue Heron. So size alone is often a good clue. The only other big, mostly white birds you’d encounter in Riverside are White Pelicans or various gull species, neither of which are remotely egret-heron-shaped.

If you don’t have both for comparison, and size is hard to judge (say, the bird is across a lake or roadside as you speed by at 55 mph), there are still a few no-fail clues that make ID straightforward. The Great Egret has a yellow-orange, dagger-shaped bill; the Snowy’s is dainty and black. Their legs and feet also differ: the Snowy has black legs with a golden “seam” down the back and little golden slippers for feet. The Great Egret’s legs and feet are all black. In short: Great Egret = yellow bill, black feet. Snowy Egret = black bill, yellow feet.

You will occasionally encounter a big white bird with long legs that is frustratingly difficult to identify. Most often, it’s flying at a distance where judging size is impossible, silhouetted against the sun and washed of color. In that case, I’ll simply chalk it up to “egret/heron species.”

In terms of range, these two species differ significantly. The Great Egret has a multi-continental range, covering the New World north to Canada, much of equatorial Africa, the Mediterranean, and parts of Asia and Europe (where it’s been expanding north). The Snowy Egret is a New World species, found in warmer parts of the continental U.S., often within 100 miles of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. South of the U.S., Snowy Egrets are found throughout Mexico, Central America, and lowland South America as far south as Patagonia.

Both species have robust populations today—but that wasn’t always the case. In the late 1800s, both were slaughtered by the thousands for fashion. Ladies’ hats of the time were adorned with “aigrettes”—the puffy breeding plumes taken from the necks of Snowies and the backsides of Greats. Public outcry led to the formation of the Audubon Society, which bought land for refuges and hired wardens to protect the birds. More than one Audubon employee lost their life to bird poachers. The tide began to turn when women organized to boycott clothing adorned with plumes. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 established strong protections for most native North American species, including egrets. Not surprisingly, the Great Egret is the symbol of the National Audubon Society.

Since then, birding has evolved—from a pastime that sometimes included collecting specimens with a shotgun to one centered on lists and pens. Birding and bird conservation now go hand in hand.

This article follows last year’s piece on how to tell the difference between ravens and crows. Birding is a growing international sport. Last Saturday was Global Big Day 2025. Around the world, thousands of individuals tried to identify as many species as possible in 24 hours—a “bird day,” as birders call it. Last year, more than 63,000 birders submitted over 156,000 checklists representing millions of individual sightings. In a few days, results for this year’s event will be released in what may be another record-breaking effort.