Egretta thula
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Pelecaniformes
Family: Ardeidae
ILLINOIS STATUS
Endangered, native
ILLINOIS RANGE
The endangered status is due to the massive number
of snowy egrets that were killed in the late 1800s for
their feathers (plume hunting.) The snowy egret was
never very common in Illinois before this period of
plume hunting and has not recovered well since.
FEATURES
An adult snowy egret is 20 to 27 inches long. It is a
white-feathered, small, thin egret. It has a yellow
patch between its eye and black bill, but during the
breeding season the patch is red. The legs are black,
and the feet are yellow.
The call of the snowy egret is
"wulla-wulla-wulla."
This survey is very important in my view, for the board needs to reaccess the budget, and where high costs could be cut, particularly publications. With such a small nonprofit organization, I urge all members to support some expenditure reductions so that dues are not raised and we do not get caught in the rising costs. It will be interesting to learn how much lower the cost of the new, slimmer quarterly is than the previous one. 12 pages is a lot too, probably unnecessary; let’s cut back to 8. Let’s be thrifty. Let’s be reasonable! Members need to make sure they see copies of the treasurer’s report in order to evaluate this situation in these grave economic times.