Egretta rufescens
Reddish Egrets are medium sized wading birds with blue-gray bodies and shaggy rufous heads and necks. Bills are pink with dark tips in breeding plumage. There are also white morph Reddish Egrets.
Worth the sand in my clothes, scrapes on my knees and looking like something the cat had wanted to drag in but decided it was way too dirty? You betcha!
Reddish Egrets seem to be natural born "Dancers" when they are hunting for prey, they twirl, spin, piroquette and dip.
There were quite a few Laughing Gulls on and near the shoreline, a few Ring-billed Gulls and two Reddish Egrets hunting on the beach that day.
Breeding plumage white morph Reddish Egret while it hunted and danced in the waves on the Gulf coast of Florida.