Eastern Cattle Egret

The eastern cattle egret is a stocky heron with a short thick neck, a sturdy bill and a hunched posture. Non-breeding adults are mostly white with a yellow bill and greyish-yellow legs. In the breeding season adults gain orange-buff plumes; in this eastern species the buff extends onto the cheeks and throat and the plumes are more golden than in the western cattle egret, with which it was long combined (Wikipedia, general account of the cattle egrets).

It uses drier, more open habitats than most herons, including pasture, farmland, rice paddies and seasonally flooded grassland. It often follows cattle or other large mammals, catching the insects and small vertebrates they disturb and removing ticks and flies from the animals. It nests in colonies, usually near water and often with other wading birds, building a platform of sticks in trees or shrubs (Wikipedia, general account of the cattle egrets).