Chinese Egret

Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes) is a slender white East Asian egret with a yellow-orange bill and feet and long ornamental crest and breast plumes during breeding. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It uses tidal flats, estuaries and shallow coastal wetlands, actively pursuing small fish, crustaceans and other aquatic prey and breeding colonially on offshore islands. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).