Downtown resident Patrick Sheldon reports a sighting:
Meet the Great Egret. That long neck is pulled in when he flies and those wings appeared to be more than four feet across in the air. The egret can have four- to five-foot wingspans.
He appeared the day of the paddleboard races (September 25th) and there were more than the usual number of visitors gathered at the North Cove Marina and the esplanade for that event. But egrets are used to being near people, and this one had a target: a very young mouse running through the planter.
After a couple of hours, he was gone. But I did see the mouse later, so apparently he gave up.
This week, a white egret was spotted near the Irish Hunger Memorial, so this guy may become a regular.
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Editor’s note: The Broadsheet has received several reports (sometimes panicked calls) of this particular bird, Casmerodius albus, sauntering around Tribeca (on Murray Street) and in Battery Park City (along the esplanade, in Oval Park, watching the lawn being mowed in Rockefeller Park, and dodging curious children in the Gateway Plaza ring road).