1. Cattle Egret The dinosaurs, it is said, went extinct 65 million years ago. But that’s not the whole story. Birds, in fact, are the survivors of those great monsters of the past, and they are all around us. You can see their reptilian roots in their scaly legs and feet. To experience what it was like to be alive in the days of those monsters, imagine yourself the size of a grasshopper with these fearsome creatures stalking you through the grass with eagle eye and vicious beak. Breeding Cattle Egret males have an orange wash over the white feathers on the crown of the head, the back and the breast, and bright yellow legs. They are highly visible, around cattle and other grazers or in the wake of ploughs, poking about in drainage channels, or in the evening flying in rather untidy V-formation overhead to where they gather in large groups to roost. They can make a huge noise together – and a big mess under the tree. As you can see by their shape, they are a kind of heron (see No.2 and 3) and are very widespread across Africa south of the Sahara, except in the Congo basin. Birds of AFRICAMA House 6 Birds of AFRICAMA House 7