BIRDS OF NANTUCKET
CANDIDISSIMA!
by Kenneth Turner Blackshaw
What a wonderful word! It sounds like the name for the Italian version of Allen Funt's "Candid Camera" TV show. But actually it is the original Latin species name for this week's bird. It means "a plume or tuft of feathers worn as a part of a headdress." Sounds elegant, doesn't it? But sad to say, the name and the whole concept of feathered headdresses almost caused this delicate, graceful bird to be wiped off the face of the earth.

Snowy Egret

Birders now know this bird as the Snowy Egret. It is a small white heron, appearing crow-sized in flight - like a white crow with long legs trailing behind it. Perhaps you may notice them working along the edge of Nantucket Harbor. Snowies have black legs and bright yellow feet. The birders call them yellow slippers. A favorite place to see them is prowling the rocks that emerge adjacent to steamboat wharf when the tide is low.

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s it was the fashion for ladies' hats to be adorned with the lovely plumes, or aigrettes, produced by these little herons every spring. To see a Snowy Egret in full courtship ardor with a spray of these elegant feathers, swirling this way and that, is a scene you will never forget. Like the hair on the back of your neck that rises with excitement, these plumes can erect and relax producing a startling effect. But as exquisite as they appeared on the bird, they also looked just smashing as part of a lady's chapeau.

Before this craze, Alexander Wilson found them breeding commonly in 1832 as far north as the Jersey shore. They nest with other herons in trees, often surrounded by water. These rookeries are noisy, crowded places where they've been able to go through their annual nesting cycle for hundreds of thousands of years. Until man came along, things were in balance. The four eggs laid each year produced enough fuzzy young to keep the population in balance.

However, it seems we humans can be a bloodthirsty lot as witnessed by the description written by an Australian ornithologist who came to the U.S. to view a rookery. He was appalled to find most of the adult birds lying dead in the water, their plumes ripped from their heads. In the nest were the slowly starving chicks with no parents to feed them.

A key event that shocked people to awareness came in 1908, when Audubon warden Columbus G. MacLeod was actually killed in the line of duty protecting a rookery in southwest Florida. This murder sparked the nation's conscience against the wearing of feathers.

The scientific name for the Snowy Egret is Egretta thula. It was first described and named by Juan Ignacio Molina, a Jesuit priest and scientist in

Chile in 1782. The word "thula" is the native name for this bird. It wasn't until

1931 that the American Ornithological

Union decided that our North American Snowies were actually the same species.

Historically this was a very rare bird on our island. When Griscom and Folger penned "The Birds of Nantucket" in 1948, only a single occurrence of this egret was known. One was shot at Hummock Pond in 1882 and later mounted and put on display in a local store.

The good news for Snowy Egret fans is that we stopped the slaughter before things had reached the tipping point. I wish we could say the same thing for the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet. Extinction is forever.

Now Nantucketers can expect to see Snowy Egrets from first part of April right into December. They nest here in the summer, mainly on Coatue, and have been found on three Christmas Bird Counts at the very end of December.

You may also find Great Egrets, their larger cousins here. They are equally common and are large enough so you might think of a Great Blue Heron when you see one flying. They have black legs and feet and a yellow beak. Rarely another small egret, the Cattle Egret shows up. We look for them in our pasture areas, not on the shore. There's even an almost identical twin to the Snowy Egret, the Little Egret. That bird was the subject of a May bird column this year and you can read about it at: http://www.nantucketindependent. com/news/2007/0523/Spo rts/042.html.

Watch for Nantucket's 'candidissimas' on our salt marshes and take a moment to enjoy their graceful style as they snatch their tiny fish lunches from

the water. I

George C. West creates illustrations for these articles. The Maria Mitchell Association sponsors bird walks on Tuesday and Thursday morning starting at 6:30 a.m., 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, from the corner of Vestal and Milk Streets. There is a fee. To hear about rare birds, or to leave a bird report call the Massachusetts Audubon hot line at 1- 781-259-8805. Ask Ken a question at: kenandcindy1@comcast.net.