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Today’s bird prefers to be around marshes, ponds, and swamps. Around any place where there is vegetation and water. You will even see them in swales full of water.

The Snowy Egret has yellow eyes and yellow feet and are best known for their beautiful
plumes that are most prevalent on the males during mating season (March and April).
The plumes are on the head, breast and back. They are long and silky to touch. In the late 1800’s, the plumes were in great demand by hunters and used as decorations on women’s hats. In fact around 1862, the plumes were selling for about $32 an ounce, almost twice as much as an ounce of gold ($3,400 today). The birds were nearly hunted into extinction, until in the early 1900’s, when a law was passed to protect them. They have rebounded and are plentiful today.

The Snowy Egret is a colonial bird and very sociable, living in colonies and close to like species.

The male chooses a nesting site, and the female finishes the nest. They share incubation and feeding duties. This is the bird that cannot recognize each other except at the nest. Even then, a bird arriving at the nest to relieve its mate must perform an elaborate greeting dance to avoid being attacked as an intruder.

The fact that these birds do not recognize each other at the nest, led me to this wonderful Scripture.

Matthew 7:21-23
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that
day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles!’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”’