Little Egret Egretta garzetta
Breeding distribution change
Resident; widely recorded on waterways across county but localised breeder
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Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2013
Atlas species lists
- Breeding distribution 1995–2000
- Summer abundance 1995–2000
- Winter distribution 1995–2000
- Winter abundance 1995–2000
- Breeding distribution 2007–2012
- Summer abundance 2007–2012
- Winter distribution 2007–2012
- Winter abundance 2007–2012
- Breeding distribution change
- Summer abundance change
- Winter distribution change
- Winter abundance change
More Little Egret maps
- Breeding distribution 1995–2000
- Summer abundance 1995–2000
- Winter distribution 1995–2000
- Winter abundance 1995–2000
- Breeding distribution 2007–2012
- Summer abundance 2007–2012
- Winter distribution 2007–2012
- Winter abundance 2007–2012
- Breeding distribution change
- Summer abundance change
- Winter distribution change
- Winter abundance change
More maps for this atlas
Map explanation
This map shows where changes occurred in the breeding season distribution of the species in Wiltshire between 1995-2000 and 2007-2012, as revealed by the fieldwork for Birds of Wiltshire (Wiltshire Ornithological Society 2007) and the shared fieldwork for Bird Atlas 2007-2011 (BTO 2013) and for Wiltshire Tetrad Atlas 2007-2012.
Gains and improvements
Status
Nos tetrads
Absent to present
104
11%
Present to breeding
0
0%
Absent to breeding
4
<1%
No change
Status
Nos tetrads
Present in both
0
0%
Breeding in both
0
0%
Losses and declines
Status
Nos tetrads
Present to absent
0
0%
Breeding to present
0
0%
Breeding to absent
0
0%
Little Egrets have a wide distribution, breeding from western and southern Eurasia south to Africa and Australia. Long confined only to the extreme south in Europe, it was only from the 1930s onwards that they began to spread north through France and into northwest Europe.
In Great Britain they occurred only as occasional spring vagrants until the late 1950s, when they began to occur more regularly, averaging about 15 a year by 1988. In 1989 over 120 were recorded, largely as a result of an unprecedented autumn influx, which then became a regular and increasing annual event, with many overwintering. Breeding was first recorded in Britain in 1996; by 1999 at least 30 pairs nested, usually within existing Grey Heron colonies, and as many as 1650 were estimated to be present.
The first ever record of a Little Egret in Wiltshire was at Britford in January 1992. They have occurred in every year since then and although numbers have fluctuated the general trend has been upwards. Birds of Wiltshire recorded their presence at 24 sites in winter and noted the first breeding record for the county in 2003. WTA2 records them in 183 tetrads in winter and 108 in summer, with confirmed breeding in three of them and probable breeding in a fourth.
References
The following references are used throughout these species accounts, in the abbreviated form given in quotation marks:
“1968-72 Breeding Atlas” – Sharrack, J.T.R. 1976: The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A. Poyser
“1981-84 Winter Atlas” – Lack, P.C. 1986: The Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A. Poyser
“1988-91 Breeding Atlas” – Gibbons, D.W., Reid, J.B. & Chapman, R.A. 1993: The New Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland 1988-91. T. & A. Poyser
“Birds of Wiltshire” – Ferguson-Lees, I.J. et al. 2007 : Birds of Wiltshire, published by the tetrad atlas group of the Wiltshire Ornithological Society after mapping fieldwork 1995-2000. Wiltshire Ornithological Society.
“Bird Atlas 2007-2011” – Balmer, D.E., Gillings, S., Caffrey, B.J., Swann, R.L., Downie, I.S. and Fuller, R.J. 2013: Bird Atlas 2007-2011: the Breeding and Wintering Birds of Britain and Ireland
“WTA2” – ("Wiltshire Tetrad Atlas 2 ") the present electronic publication, bringing together the Wiltshire data from “Birds of Wiltshire” and “Bird Atlas 2007-11”, together with data from further fieldwork carried out in 2011 and 2012.
"Hobby" - the annual bird report of the Wiltshire Ornithological Society.