These cattle egrets showed up as soon as I started mowing with the tractor.

Walking, flying, group, cattle egrets, OPF 2023-06-04

They followed me around, eventually getting within two feet of the tractor, jockeying to snatch up bugs.

This is the best writeup I’ve found on the origin of Bubulcus ibis, which it now lives on six continents and is sometimes found in Antarctica.

Judy Lehmberg, CBS News, June 15, 2017, Nature up close: Cattle egrets, masters of emigration,

Cattle egrets (formerly named buff-backed herons due to their breeding plumage) are native to parts of Spain, Portugal, sub-Saharan Africa, and tropical and subtropical Asia. They are the only animal known to have successfully moved from the Old World to the New World on their own, without any aide from humans. No one knows exactly how they got to the New World, but we do know they were first seen in the Guianas in northeastern South America in 1877. Some ornithologists speculate they were blown from their native Africa across the Atlantic by trade winds, or possibly during a storm.

This is the only land species known to have made it across the Atlantic Ocean on its own during recorded history.

-jsq

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