Bird Watcher's Digest Magazine

There are precious few birds that are entirely white. We go gaga over white birds from the Arctic—snowy owls, ivory gulls, and snow buntings—but sometimes overlook the equally white and appealing egrets. White is unusual and attractive, but to those interested in bird identification it causes a problem: White has no pattern. White is white. Unless there are spots, streaks, or some sort of pattern, we obtain little information from white alone. This means that the identification of the white egrets and herons has to be a little different than that of other birds, because you absolutely need to focus on size, shape, and the colors of soft parts (legs, bills, bare face patches). However, egrets are kind to us because they do not hide; they tend to stay out in the open, allowing for easy study.

What is an egret? Another way to pose this is to ask what is the difference between a heron and an egret? The terms are imprecise, and parallel the murky usage of "dove" versus "pigeon." The terms have a broadly understood meaning, but it's difficult to define exactly what they mean. The division of egret versus heron is not taxonomically meaningful, and not all egrets are more closely related to each other than to herons. What we generally understand an egret to be is a bird in the heron group that is smaller, slimmer, and daintier on average than a big old heron. We tend to associate egrets with the color white.

It had been a weekend, a five-day doozy of preparation and execution of the Midwest Birding Symposium in Lakeside, Ohio. A whirl of talks and performances, and hanging around it all an art show—I was all done in, happily exhausted. I'd started for home with the kids, the dog, and a groaning cargo carrier of luggage and gear swaying on the back of my little Subaru. It was going for midnight when we got home, and I wearily pressed "Play" on the answering machine. The third message snapped me to attention.

His voice was clipped, military and precise, measured and intense.

"Yes. My name is John Doe. Approximately four hours ago, which would be 1600 hours on Sunday afternoon, I was driving on my motorcycle between Woodsfield and Sardis, Ohio, and noticed a bird floundering on the edge of the road, which as it turned out was a red-tailed hawk, which I know is an endangered species. I called Monroe County Sheriff's office in a roundabout way, but two people called for me and I know 'cuz I've talked to the deputy, and he said that he was going to contact someone in the wildlife area to go down and look at the hawk..."

There is not much of planet Earth that's been lived on, fought over, plowed under, built on, reshaped, and pondered over more than the land known as Israel. Serving as part of the small land bridge between Europe, Asia, and Africa, Israel is also one of the planet's most active bird migration routes. With relatively little land, and despite a high proportion of that land being desert, Israel has evolved into a mega-successful agricultural nation, producing crops from cotton to beef, fruits, and vegetables, and expanding in recent decades to include vineyards and fish farms. More than 95 percent of Israel's food needs are produced in-country. The expansion of agriculture in rural areas of Israel has created decades of conflict between birds and farmers, both of which are trying to make a living from the land and sparse water resources.

Bordering the Mediterranean Sea and the countries of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Israel has come up with unique solutions to vexing problems of resource allocation. A high percentage of Israeli homes use solar power to heat water. Drip-irrigation means that crops in Israel thrive with highly efficient water use. When I was invited in late 2011 to travel to Israel's Hula Valley to observe the success of cooperative conservation programs between farmers and several of Israel's nature conservation organizations, I jumped at the opportunity.