The little egret is a species of small heron. It is a white bird with a slender black beak, long black legs and, in the western race, yellow feet. As an aquatic bird, it feeds in shallow water and on land, consuming a variety of small creatures. It breeds colonially, often with other species of water birds, making a platform nest of sticks in a tree, bush or reed bed. A clutch of three to five bluish-green eggs is laid and incubated by both parents for about three weeks. The young fledge at about six weeks of age. Dark morph birds are dark to medium slate gray, almost always with a white throat, often with white on the primary coverts, and occasionally with white speckles on the upperparts. White morph birds, which are less common, are all white except for (sometimes) a scattering of dark feathers on the body. Birds that are intermediate between white morph and dark morph are rare and are medium gray with variable patches of white