Sep 24 2008
Chincoteague I: Herons & Horses
Saturday, I helped co-lead the Chincoteague field trip for the Eastern Shore Birding & Wildlife Festival. Not that the main leader, Ned Brinkley, needed any help, as it was a small group and Ned knows Virginia and its birds as well as anyone. But it was a nice chance to spend some time in the field with Ned and to revisit a wonderful place that I used to get to regularly.
Chincoteague is most famous for its “wild” ponies, which are, of course, more feral than truly wild. But wild isn’t a black-and-white thing. Here’s an interesting juxtaposition:
A wild Cattle Egret atop a wild pony. But a couple of hundred years ago, neither of them, nor their ancestors, would have been here. The ponies were let loose here by settlers, while the egrets reached these shores in the mid-20th Century under their own power, having emigrated from Africa to South America, then moving north.
I feel certain the egrets were, and continue to be, wholly uninterested in how the ponies got to Chincoteague. But I’ll bet they were glad to find them here–giant, insect-flushing machines quite similar in broad detail to the grazing mammals of their African homeland.
Of course, Cattle Egrets are able to feed without the bush-beating activities of big furry animals. But it does look like fun, doesn’t it? There’s a certain romance in a life lived in proximity to large beasts that might kill or injure you with a single step. I’ll have to give some thought to changing the name Cattle Egret to Cowboy Egret. Whaddya think, pardner?
Above is a more typical egret, a Snowy, poised to strike at small fish. Below, a Little Blue Heron:
Though their obvious differences in color and nomenclature might lead you to conclude that they are but distant cousins, Snowy Egret and Little Blue Heron are congeners–both are placed in the same genus, Egretta. Egret and heron are terms that can be a little slippery (and not just golden-slipper-y). In the most basic, common-sense application, herons are dark and egrets are white. But the biological view is considerably more complex.
Below, a Little Blue Heron joins another fellow Egretta, a Tricolored Heron.
At Chincoteague, I saw “egrets” that were white, but not closely related (Cattle and Snowy), “herons” that were really egrets in dark drag (Little Blue and Tricolored) and “wild” ponies that were less “wild” than the egrets that rode them, though both are relative newcomers.
Classification is something we undertake in an effort to make sense of our world. Mostly, I believe it works. I know I love knowing something of the backstory behind the plants, animals, and wild places I encounter. But it has its limits–at times, it may obscure as much as it reveals. Be careful out there.
It was the word “chincoteague” that immediately caught my attention, a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Your photographs are outstanding. I happen to love horses too, wild, feral or otherwise, and the interaction between birds and horses is one more area of nature’s intrigue. Enjoyed my visit, your writing as well as your beautiful photography.