Cattle Egret
Name: Cattle Egret
Location: Kawdi, Pune.
Conservation Status: Least Concern (IUCN Red List)
This is a widespread resident bird unrecorded in parts of NW and NE of the subcontinent. It is gregarious when roosting and feeding. Typically seen in flocks around domestic stock and also wild buffalo, feeding on insects disturbed by the animals, often rides on the animal’s back picking parasitic insects and flies from their hides. Also forage in flooded fields. Unlike other egrets it feeds mainly on insects
Found in damp grasslands, paddy-fields, grass-banks of village tanks, canals and lakes, also rubbish dumps and forest clearings.
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