Great Egret split: the American Egret and the Great White Egret

What changed

Is the Great Egret now called the American Egret?

On the AOS's list, yes. On October 20, 2026, in the 67th Supplement to its Check-list, the AOS named the Great Egret of the Americas the American Egret, Ardea egretta, and gave the name Great White Egret, Ardea alba, to the Old World bird.

Not everywhere yet. AviList, the shared world checklist, still calls both birds Great Egret, and eBird still had one Great Egret when we checked on October 22, 2026; its update is expected on October 27. You may see American Great Egret too: the name the AOS proposal itself had suggested.

Surprising facts about the American Egret

Hats nearly finished it. Plume hunters nearly wiped out the Great Egret in the US in the late 1800s, and once protected it came back fast, says Audubon's field guide. The plumes went on women's hats, Audubon's history recounts.

It is the Audubon bird. In 1896 Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall of Boston founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society out of their teas urging women to give up feathered hats, and in 1953 the National Audubon Society made a flying Great Egret its symbol, its history page says.

A warden died for the egrets. Guy Bradley, an Audubon warden, was killed by plume poachers in Florida in 1905, Audubon's history recounts.

The new name surfaced in a federal notice. Nearly three weeks before the AOS published it, the American Egret appeared in the US Fish and Wildlife Service's proposed update to the list of birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, on October 1, 2026.

Why it changed

Bill, face, plumes and voice. In the breeding season, Old World Great Egrets turn the whole bill black and the bare skin of the face dark blue-green; American birds never go fully black-billed, keeping a yellow lower half, and reach at most a pale blue-green, the AOS proposal says. Their breeding plumes differ too, and in flight American birds give a croak and Old World birds a rattle. Voice, breeding colors and plumes were the main reasons, the AOS said when it announced the split.

The DNA evidence is thinner, the proposal admits: it rests on short DNA barcodes, and the African birds have never been sampled. Its authors, Pamela Rasmussen, Jon Dunn and Andrew Spencer, strongly recommended splitting off the American bird but disagreed about the Asian one. The AOS split off the American bird only. AviList, for its part, is waiting until the egrets of the Old World are sorted out, it says.

An old name comes back. The first checklists of the American Ornithologists' Union, the AOS's forerunner, in 1886, 1895 and 1910, already treated the American Egret as its own species; by 1931 it had become part of the Old World species, the proposal notes. The AOS called American Egret a name used before Great Egret.

Who decided, and when

• October 20, 2026American Ornithological Society (AOS): the 67th Supplement to its Check-list, after its committee passed proposal 2026-A-8, part a
• October 20, 2026AviList, the shared world checklist: its 2026 edition, v2026, still has one Great Egret: it is waiting until the egrets of the Old World are sorted out
• October 22, 2026eBird and the Clements Checklist: hadn't split it yet when we checked. Its yearly update is expected on October 27, 2026; eBird usually follows the AOS, but what it changes is certain only once it publishes

How do you tell an American Egret from a Great White Egret?

In the US and Canada you rarely have to: the American Egret is the one you'll see. Great White Egrets are known in Alaska from the western and central Aleutian Islands, the proposal says.

Abroad, look in the breeding season: an Old World bird gets an all-black bill and dark blue-green skin on its face, an American bird keeps a yellow lower bill and at most pale green skin. Outside the breeding season they are hard to tell apart, and distant photos of white egrets are often misidentified, the proposal warns.

Which one did you see?

In the US and Canada, by place: nearly every Great Egret here is an American Egret. The Great White Egrets found here have been in Alaska's western and central Aleutians.

Abroad, look at the bill in the breeding season: all black on a Great White Egret, partly yellow on an American Egret.

What it does to your list

In eBird, nothing has changed yet: it still lists one Great Egret until its update, expected on October 27, 2026, and with AviList keeping one too, it may or may not follow the AOS this time. If eBird does split it and you have seen Great Egrets both in the Americas and in Europe, Africa, Asia or Australia, your eBird total will go up by one: an “armchair lifer.” Seen only in the Americas, yours changes only its name.

Birdfolio books use AviList's October 2026 edition, which keeps one Great Egret. So your book counts one Great Egret and prints that name, even if your list says American Egret or Great White Egret, or has both.

Audubon painted it as his “White Heron,” plate 386. The AOS split the Willet and the Marsh Wren the same day.

Watched egrets on both sides of the Atlantic? Whatever eBird decides, try your list as a book: the first pages are free to see.