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Little Egrets are the medium-sized egrets. Their plumage is all-white in the non-breeding season, with long scapular and frontal plumes during the breeding season. In addition, they grow two long, thin nuchal plumes at the back of their head. Their irises are yellow. The straight bill is black with a yellow base, the legs are black.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Little Egret is available HERE .

There are two races of Little Egrets. The western, nominate race "garzetta" populates almost all of Africa to the South of the Sahara desert (with the exceptions of two regions in south-western Africa), the Nile valley, the northern coastline near the Atlas Mountains. Of this range, the southern coast of West Africa and the northern coast are wintering grounds; the rest is populated all year round. Parts of South and South-east Europe, including the Balkans, the western half of Turkey, an area around the Black Sea and another South of the Caspian Sea are summer breeding grounds. Little Egrets are found all year round along the entire Arabian coastline, the coastline of Iran/Iraq and basically all of Pakistan, the Indian subcontinent and South-east Asia. Further North, into southern China, there are additional breeding and wintering grounds. The southern end of this race's range in Asia are the Philippines.

Little Egrets, race "nigripes", are found in Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia and (non-breeding) in New Zealand. (Note that the Australian/New Zealand population is sometimes also treated as separate race "immaculata".)

In Oman Little Egrets, race "garzetta", inhabit the entire (near-coastal) fringe, except the eatern tip around Ras al-Hadd, where they are not found right on the coastline, but in the hinterland only.

Little Egrets are found in the shallows of various kinds of wetlands, including ephemeral wetlands such as flooded grassland, and in intertidal mudflats.

Race "garzetta"

Race "nigripes"