Cattle Egret with breading plumage

The greenery below is a floating vegetation, this part of the river is been completely covered. There were around 12 cattle egrets feeding there, got an opportunity to spend 4 hours with these birds.

It was a pleasure watching them stack their prey with a unique neck movement. As it is a breading season for these birds a couple had reached their prime, other were still in initial stages.

Was not able to distinguish between male and female, is there a way we can find this?

This moment was captured just before the egret was about to gulp this insect.

Location: Pune
Canon 7D. 400mm f5.6
Manual Exposure
Auto Focus
Manual metering
Shutter Speed 1/1600
Aperture 8.0
ISO 320
Focal Length 400mm
Cropped by 31%
Tripod Support

Nice live image.Colours look natural.Thanks for sharing.SaktiWild

Nice walking pose. I feel you could have kept some more place all around to show more of the habitat as it is a crop. The light seems a bit harsh. Thanks for sharing.

P.S - You can check this article which talks about death of a waterbody which was specially written for IndiaWilds -

The Death Of a Waterbody

This seems like clicked from a higher angle. The breeding plumage is visible. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi