The great egret is among the many waterbirds I'm able to watch from my studio window on the west coast of Florida, along with great blue herons, night herons, tricolored herons, snowy egrets and cattle egrets. The most elegant and showy in breeding plumage is, perhaps, the great egret.

Just across the water from our house is a mangrove island which becomes ablaze with waterbirds at sundown. Further south is a smaller island, all round which exists perhaps one of the greatest concentrations of nesting birds in southwest Florida. The birds, feeling secure on their little island, can be watched from the bank only a hundred feet away.

The great egret pair in my painting was seen as the sun began to rise, busy building a nest between the courtship displays. I was attracted by the abstract shapes the birds created as they struck different poses against the darkened mangrove. The long veil of plumes which extends from the center of their backs during the breeding season was an element I wanted to emphasize.

Although the great egret nests and winters in all the southern states south to Columbia, it can be found as far north as Oregon in the west, Connecticut in the east as well as throughout the midwest.

- John Seerey-Lester