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Demography and Populations
Measures Of Breeding Activity
Age At First Breeding; Intervals Between Breeding
Based on color-banded individuals in Texas, second-year individuals rarely visit colonies and do not breed, a few third-year individuals may breed, but most breed first as fourth-year individuals (RTP).
Clutch
Clutch size usually 3 eggs (see Breed-ing: eggs, above).
Annual And Lifetime Reproductive Success
Very little information. Broods of 2 and 3 hatchlings seen in n. Belize (A. Poole pers. comm.).
Number Of Broods Normally Reared Per Season
No information.
Life Span And Survivorship
No information on annual adult-survival rate. Maximum reported longevity 12 yr 3 mo by individual banded as chick in Calhoun Co., TX, and shot in Jackson Co., TX (based on 62 recoveries of 1,964 birds banded through Aug 1981; Clapp et al. 1982).
Disease And Body Parasites
Diseases
No information.
Body Parasites
Limited information. From 3 egrets, following species of ecto- and endoparasites identified: mite (Acarina: Ardeacarus ardeae), feather lice (Mallophaga, Ciconiphilus decimfasciatus, Ardeicola florida, Comatomenopon dichromanassae), tapeworms (Cestoda: Parvitaenia heardi), flukes (Trematoda: Mesoophorodiplostomum pricei, Bolbophorus confusus, Apharyngostrigea multiovata, Ascocotyle gemina, Ribeiroia ondatrae), nematodes (Nematoda; Contracaecum [2 species], Desmidocercella numidica, Tetrameres sp., Strongyloides sp., Capillaria sp., Synhimantus invaginatus), and spiny-headed worm (Acanthocephala: Arhythmorhynchus pumiliorostris); 1 of these 3 egrets had died of “severe pox-virus infection”; no parasites found in blood samples from 9 individuals nor in fecal samples from 12 individuals; the nematode Contracaecum multipapillatum found in all samples of regurgitated food from 16 individuals; other ectoparasites include hippoboscid fly (Lynchia albipennis) and tick (Ornithodoros capensis; Conti et al. 1986).
Causes Of Mortality
Exposure
No information.
Predation
Little information on predators. Heron colony on Green I., TX, numbered about 4,000 pairs (including 524 Reddish Egret pairs) in 1965, but after raccoons reached the colony in 1965, censuses indicated only 4 pairs of Reddish Egrets in 1987 and <20 pairs for 1986–1989 (Paul 1991).
Competition With Other Species
No information.
Range
No information.
Population Status
Numbers
Total U.S. population now about 2,000 pairs distributed as 1,500 pairs in Texas, 350–400 in Florida, 50–150 in Louisiana, and only few in Alabama (Portnoy 1981; Paul 1991, 1996). Plume-hunting (and taking eggs and nestlings) from 1880 until about 1908 greatly reduced populations. In Florida, species unreported 1927–1937 (R. P. Allen in Palmer 1962), but has increased so that now current abundance represents about 10% of pre-1880 numbers (Paul 1996). Mexican population numbers about 300–400 pairs, perhaps about 25% of this total on Mexico’s Atlantic coast (Lopez-Ornat and Ramo 1992).
Trends
In Florida, since reappearance of 4 or 5 individuals seen 23 Apr 1937, about 50 pairs present in 1944, 150 pairs in 1954, 200 pairs in 1959, 200–250 pairs during 1970s, about 250 pairs in 1978 (Powell et al. 1989), and about 400 pairs in 40 colonies in 1990 (Robertson and Woolfenden 1992).
Population Regulation
No information.
Lowther, Peter E. and Richard T. Paul. 2002. Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/633
