Birds of Foothill College

Great Egrets (Ardea alba are large (3-4 feet tall) white wading birds with yellow bills and black legs that are occasionally found on campus hunting in drainage ditches and creeks near perimeter road. Male and female Great Egrets are similar in appearance.

Similar species:

The Snowy Egret (not known from Foothill campus, but common in the wetlands around the SF Bay) is much smaller than a Great Egret, and has a more slender black bill and black legs with bright-yellow feet.

Great Blue Herons, which also visit campus to hunt in the grassy areas and drainage ditches are bluish gray in color and have a white head with a black stripe over the eye. They are also larger than Great Egrets less ↑

The Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird (between 3 and 5 feet tall) that are mostly blue-grey, with brown thighs, and a white cap over a black eye stripe that merges into long, black plumes. The sexes are similar in coloration but the female is normally around ten percent smaller than the male, while juveniles are duller and lack the long plumes of the adults (EOL).

Similar species

Great Egret is another tall wading bird sometimes seen on campus, but as the name suggest, is all white in coloration. less ↑