Nice catch of a very handsome bird, Marcus. Egret or Heron? Good question. Strictly speaking (as far as one can be strict with common names, and that's usually the catch) my understanding is that it's the Great Egret ( Ardea alba ) though it's also still widely known as the White Heron.
The boffins really confused things a decade or two back. It seems that most herons and egrets -- both members of the family Ardeidae -- used to be classified within the same genus Egretta , and this critter used to be known as Egretta alba . The powers that be then came up with a new genus Ardea into which they put the egrets, leaving the herons, in the main, within the genus... wait for it... Egretta (!).
At least that's how it seems to be currently. There are huge cans of worms writhing the world over with taxonomical issues, with several reversals of classification (accompanied by no small amount of argument) having been foisted on the world by the scientific community over the last few years, especially in the field of botany where one gets the impression that too much of this smacks of academia with little regard for the huge redundancy of printed reference material -- not to mention wholesale confusion -- that it has been causing. Books can hang around for centuries, and new works (especially semi-scientific ones) won't always reflect adequate research and up-to-the-minute conventions. We can expect the renaming frenzy to intensify now that ready analysis of DNA has become such an affordable and accessible tool, but there's never any guarantee that a given publication won't be at odds with current thinking.
Small wonder the world's confused over herons versus egrets! (I haven't a clue as to what divides the two, BTW ;-) - Mike
