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Snowy Egrets Made Up 73% of Herons Counted on Venezuela’s Santa Rita Coast

Snowy egret standing in shallow water
Research · Ecology

Monthly surveys along the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo found that snowy egrets (Egretta thula) overwhelmingly dominated the local heron community. Researchers surveyed a 3 km coastal transect in Santa Rita, Zulia, Venezuela, once a month from July 2023 to July 2024, except in December, recording birds in mangroves, coastal vegetation, a creek, sandy beach and artificial structures such as piers, breakwaters, pilings and buoys.

A transect is a predefined line or route used to survey an area systematically, with observations, signs or sampling points recorded along it.

Across the surveys, 2,457 herons from nine species were counted. Snowy egrets accounted for 1,793 individuals, or 73% of the total, far ahead of great egrets (Ardea alba) at 24.6%. Snowy egrets were recorded in every monthly survey and occurred in all evaluated habitat types. The most heavily used habitats across the heron community were mangroves, sandy beaches and artificial structures, with birds using the coast mainly for resting and feeding and also gathering around fishing ports where fishery discards were available.

Snowy egrets showed a particularly broad range of activities. The study recorded them feeding, resting and using mangrove habitat for courtship; no nests were found in the four plots searched for nesting. The author also observed birds in breeding plumage and notes that early-morning and evening movements may indicate that some individuals travel to larger, less disturbed mangroves nearby to breed.

Heron abundance and species richness generally increased from May to September as the rainy period developed. Between October and January, when fishing activity declined and one major fishing port temporarily closed, observations of snowy and great egrets also fell, although fishing effort itself was not measured. The study describes mangrove removal, solid waste, wastewater and hydrocarbon pollution among the pressures affecting the Santa Rita coast and highlights the area’s continuing value as feeding, resting, preening and courtship habitat despite substantial human modification.

Sources and image credit

  1. Lárez, L. (2026). Abundancia estacional y uso de hábitat de garzas (familia Ardeidae) en Santa Rita, Costa Oriental del Lago de Maracaibo, Venezuela. Revista Nicaragüense de Biodiversidad, 135, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18124327Primary 2026 article. Twelve monthly line-transect surveys in Santa Rita, Zulia, counted 2,457 herons from nine species; snowy egret was dominant with 1,793 individuals (73%), followed by great egret at 24.58%. Snowy egret occurred in all evaluated habitat types.

Image: José Francisco Colorado Dapa — wild snowy egret photographed in Tamaulipas, Mexico, 19 November 2019; Wikimedia Commons / iNaturalist; representative species and wetland-habitat image, not a bird from the Venezuela study · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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Ecology

SPECIES IN THIS STORY

Species in this story

Snowy Egret Egretta thula Explore species Great Egret Ardea alba Explore species

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