Western Cattle-Egret

How to find it

Look for it in cow pastures and around tractors, where it is easy to find throughout the country. Rice fields are also worth a scan, and sometimes beaches. In the evening, check trees overhanging water, where it roosts at night. In the far north, the area with cows in fields is a place to see it, and a tour trip list recorded lots throughout that region.

How to recognise it

Start with the bill. This is the only small white heron in Costa Rica with a yellow bill, and that one mark settles most doubts.

Adults are white with a yellow eye and face skin and dark legs. The bird looks stockier and shorter necked than the other small white herons.

In breeding plumage it gets buff colour on the crown, chest and back, and the bill and facial skin turn reddish.

Immatures have no buff, and the yellow of their bill is duller.

What it sounds like

Recording: Jono, CC BY 4.0, source, read 4 Nov 2026.

Behaviour and diet

This egret forages with cattle and other large grazers, catching the small animals the big animals flush. Success is about 3.6 times higher beside cattle than alone.

It often follows tractors and farm machinery to take insects stirred up as they pass. It walks with a hunched posture and a forward jerk of the head.

It nests in dense colonies, often over water, mainly in the rainy season. At night it roosts in trees overhanging water.

Where it lives

It lives in savannas, pastures, mangroves, marshes and farmland, and is closely tied to cattle. It is found almost countrywide below 2,000 m elevation, and sometimes higher.

It favours farmland at low and middle elevations on both the Caribbean and Pacific slopes, where it forages in fields, follows tractors and also uses marshes. A mountain hotel describes it as an unexpected visitor in highland pastures, where the white birds stand out against the green grass.

When to see it

A few northern migrant individuals may also be present between October and April.

Similar birds

Snowy Egret has a black bill and yellow feet, and Great Egret has a yellow bill and black feet. The Cattle-Egret is much smaller than a Great Egret, with a shorter neck and bill, often with salmon-buff on head and chest. Juvenile Little Blue Herons are also white but have dark bills. Great Egret is usually found at water, while the Cattle-Egret favours open, dry ground like pasture and fields.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

Costa Rican sources list several common names for it: garza, garza del ganado, garza vaquera and garcilla bueyera. The Spanish name points to its link with cattle.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident with migrants (R,M), and it is an abundant resident that keeps increasing as deforestation creates more open habitat.

Photography tips

Cow pastures and the wake of tractors are the easiest places to find it. In highland pastures the white birds stand out against the green grass, which helps with framing.