Egrets

Egrets are notoriously difficult to photograph without a strong telephoto lens, as they will fly away if you appraoch them, or even if you stop to take a picture, so I was pleased to get these shots the other day in the river at hamada.

There are several species of egret in Japan, lesser, intermediate, great, etc, and I believe they are a type of heron, though the common grey herons are nowhere near as skittish as egrets.

You see them everywhere, in rivers, ponds and lakes, and once the rice paddies are flooded and planted they congregate there.