Road wandering egrets to winter over as best they can

October 31, 2007 03:54 pm

— By Leslie Gibson
Herald-Banner Staff

Egrets wintering over at Trinity Baptist Church on State Highway 66 just west of Royse City are going to have to make it as best they can on their own, according to wild bird experts at Rogers Wildlife at Hutchins.
They are probably the teenage birds who were not able to leave the rookery in September when their parents and older siblings left, according to information from the Rogers Wildlife Center in Hutchins.
Each year the egrets, a federally protected bird, nest in the Royse City area, noted the city’s animal control officer, Danny Mims, and last year were on Crenshaw Road he said.
“They roost in trees in the creek bottom and on the church property,” Mims said.
“There’s still quite a few,” Trinity Baptist Church Pastor Dal Cottrell said. They congregate especially in the morning and late afternoon.
Watching them hunt for food is intriguing, he said because they crane their long, slender necks back and forth as they hunt grasshoppers and crickets.
Cottrell, like everybody else driving through the area, has a hard time avoiding the birds, which walk right out in front of moving vehicles, he said.
They probably “don’t know what to do,” said a spokesman for Rogers Wildlife. “They are not able to find food or water and start wandering around. That’s when they get into trouble.”
Mims takes all of Royse City’s injured egrets to Rogers Wildlife, which takes in 30 to 40 daily from everywhere during September and October, amounting to thousands of injured egrets annually. “We winter them over and let them loose in the spring,” the Rogers Wildlife spokesperson said.
The nesting of the egrets has its own dangers as well. Ten to 20 nests will be in a tree. While the parents go to find food, if a baby leaves its nest, the other ones from other nests peck it on the head or eyes and knock it off the branch. “Very territorial” is how the egret is described.
Mims was very complimentary of the work of Rogers Wildlife Center, and stressed that they operate only on donations. Royse City Animal Control officers take all of the injured birds, including owls, hawks, and egrets to Rogers. But 90 percent of the calls he has been getting are to report egrets dead in the roadway.

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