Chinese Egret ( Egretta eulophotes) is also known as Swinhoe’s egret & yellow-billed white heron.   It occurs along the coast of east Asia from east Russia, through China to Korea and winters in Southeast Asia.  This species is a rare migrant to Singapore and it is on globally vulnerable conservation status.

Upon hearing the sighting of this egret at Chek Jawa, I made two visits and was  happy to sight this rarity there on 20th March 2020,  two hours before the low-tide at 1.30 p.m.  It stayed at the tidal mudflats for 3 hours and I had an opportunity to observe and video record  its feeding  behaviour.  Chinese egret feeds mainly on fish, shrimps and small crustaceans. It follows tide-line to feed.

The Chinese egret is an active feeder and moves with lots of energy .  It moves quickly around its feeding site to find and chase fish .  It showed various feeding techniques as below:-

i)   Running  rapidly for short distance and stabbing with its bill

ii)  Making  sudden turns right , left and u-turn  and stabbing with its bill

ii)  Walking  slowly and standing  looking for food

iv) Running  with wings half-spread and flapped or flicked

I have captured  all of these actions in the attached video:

Their indecisive and sudden movements appeared comical and many of us started laughing.  Observing this peculiar behaviour of this global rarity was indeed ,  a rare opportunity !