Tropical Butterfly House - New Little Egrets

New Little Egrets at the Tropical Butterfly House

Sheffield’s Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry Centre has welcomed four new Little Egrets to their ever-expanding menagerie.

The new arrivals, who have been named Eugene, Jules, Mia and Vincent, hatched in June 2011 but are nearly at their fully grown height of only around 60cm and are settling in well after around one week in their new home.

Ben Coulson, Animal Presenter at the Tropical Butterfly House, said about the new arrivals, “We hope it will be possible in the future for these striking birds to roam freely around the centre amongst the chickens, guinea-fowl and peacocks, but for now, visitors may see them in their enclosure near to the Farm Barn”

Little Egrets are small white herons with attractive plumes on top of their heads. Like the heron, they feed on fish from shallow water but also eat amphibians, large insects and sometimes small mammals.

Out of all the birds in the heron family, the Little Egret is the liveliest hunter; snapping at prey whilst walking through water or even running through the water to disturb their prey.

They are colonial nesters, constructing nests with anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand others, choosing trees or bushes or sometimes rocks and cliffs near to water.

They inhabit lakes, marshes and estuaries throughout Europe, Asia, Australasia and Africa, and up to 1600 birds spend Winter in the UK.

Following an expansion in their habitat range into Western and Northern France in previous decades, the Little Egret’s colonisation in the UK followed naturally; first appearing in significant numbers in 1989, and first breeding here in Dorset in 1996.

There are less than 200 breeding pairs resident in the UK, however, so it is still listed as a rare breeding species here.

2011 has been quite a year for new arrivals at the Tropical Butterfly House; with many new additions including White Storks, Prairie Dogs, Tenrecs, Hahn’s Macaws, Bank Voles, Mouse Birds, Turkish Spiny Mice, and a wide variety of interesting invertebrates. For more information about the centre, visit the dayvisits Tropical Butterfly House page.