Little egret

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Little egret
Giardino delle vittime di via Fani
Lungarno Aldo Moro
Florence, January 2020

“The little egret (Egretta garzetta) is a species of small heron in the family Ardeidae. The genus name comes from the Provençal French Aigrette, ‘egret’, a diminutive of Aigron, ‘airone’. The species epithet garzetta is from the Italian name for this bird, garzetta or sgarzetta. It is a white bird with a slender black beak, long black legs and, in the western race, yellow feet. As an aquatic bird, it feeds in shallow water and on land, consuming a variety of small creatures. It breeds colonially, often with other species of water birds, making a platform nest of sticks in a tree, bush or reed bed. A clutch of bluish-green eggs is laid and incubated by both parents. The young fledge at about six weeks of age. Its breeding distribution is in wetlands in warm temperate to tropical parts of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. A successful colonist, its range has gradually expanded north, with stable and self-sustaining populations now present in the United Kingdom.” (Little egret, Wikipedia)