I didn’t just stumble upon the beautiful white morph reddish egret. He’s been spending a lot of time at the north end of Outback Key at Fort Desoto. He’s quite famous with the bird photographers there. I found him dancing around in front of a ton of sleeping shorebirds.
He was running back and forth in the water catching bait fish. This went on for quite a while. He was such a show off for the photographers out in the water watching him (I was not alone, there were at least 6 other photographers there early on this weekday morning). White morph reddish egrets are rare and he’s the only one I’ve heard of being in the Tampa Bay area. I’ve been taking pictures of one here since early 2012 but I’m not sure if it’s the same one. I hadn’t seen him in several years so I was excited to find him again.