Hernshaws of the White

I get inspiration from odd places -- I got a Videoguide to the Birds of North America on DVD (though the original footage is nearly 20 years old), and got to see some beautiful clips of what probably are my favorite birds: the herons and egrets. These are incredibly beautiful and graceful birds. I'd take them over swans any day.

I decided to draw all of the North American members of this family that are almost completely white. Some of these species are only white at one phase in their growth, and some of them are a variation of a differently colored species.

From top to bottom:
White phase of great blue heron (a.k.a., great white heron)
Great egret (in breeding plumage)
White phase of reddish egret (left)
Snowy egret (in breeding plumage, right)
Immature little blue heron (left)
Cattle egret (in breeding plumage, right)

Note: the faint feathers in the background are scanned images of a feather from one of our pet chickens. Also, the word "hernshaw" is what herons were called up until about 200 years ago. Variations on this name included "henshaw" "heronshaw" and "handsaw"...That "tell a hawk from a handsaw" line in Hamlet did not involve differentiating between a bird of prey and a tool used to cut wood...