There are lots of Cattle Egrets here and some of their favorite places to lurk for food are: On the backs of cattle (duh), on the backs of goats and on the backs of horses. These 3 hosts appear to have different degrees of tolerance for these Egret hitchhikers and the horses seem to have the least.
Here's what happened in our next door pasture:
Egret in favorite position for grabbing bugs and parasites from both the horse's back and from stuff stirred up by the grazing.
Horse becomes frustrated and heads into the trees. (FYI those are Ironwood trees)
The brush off
Success! Egret free! Horse is happy and the Egret is sitting nearby in the pasture hoping for the opportunity to hop back on for more lunch.
~Click the pics to see them larger~
~Click the pics to see them larger~
