Egretta rufescens
Silhouette: Amanda Kuhlman · PhyloPic
In 3 days <5%
The reddish egret (Egretta rufescens) is a medium-sized heron that is a resident breeder in Central America, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast of the United States (primarily Texas), and Mexico. The egret is known for its unusual foraging behavior compared to other herons as well as its association with mud flats, its habitat of choice.
In the past, this bird was a victim of the plume trade and is North America's "rarest and least studied ardeid." The reddish egret was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the herons, cranes and egrets in the genus Ardea and coined the binomial name Ardea rufescens. Gmelin based his description on that of the English ornithologist John Latham who in 1785 had included the species in his multi-volume A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had in turn based his own description on the "L'Aigrette rousse, de la Louisiane" that the French polymath Comte de Buffon had described and illustrated in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux. The reddish egret is now placed with 12 other species in the genus Egretta that... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 2 | Havana | 🇨🇺 Cuba | |
| 3 | Mesa | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 4 | Los Angeles | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 5 | Barranquilla | 🇨🇴 Colombia | |
| 6 | Miami | 🇺🇸 United States | |
| 7 | Houston | 🇺🇸 United States |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Reddish Egret sighting in Houston on a given day, based on 71 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 219th most-seen of the 302 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to under 5%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Any time of year
In every month with enough records, under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Reddish Egret in Houston on a given day, so our monthly data shows no clear season.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Reddish Egret sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
7th of 7
Of the 7 cities where we can rate Reddish Egret sightings, Houston ranks 7th at under 5%. The best odds are in San Diego (United States, about 10%), Havana (Cuba, about 10%) and Mesa (United States, about 10%).
Same genus: Egretta
The closest relatives of the Reddish Egret that you can see in Houston (genus Egretta, Small Egrets and Herons) are Snowy Egret (about 30%) and Little Blue Heron (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Reddish Egret is recorded against all the birds logged in Houston (71 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
