The egrets came calling

Some brands become synonymous with a product category - like Google for search or Xerox for photocopying... The parallel in the construction world is the use of JCB for an excavator - I was surprised to discover that this GBP 4 billon company is privately owned !

Today, we had to clear the area where our north facing patio will be - currently, its full of soil and rocks. So we rented a JCB with an operator at about Rs 800 (approx. USD 11) an hour. The operator was doing a skilful job of moving small rocks and large boulders aside while clearing the soil. While I was watching this, I noticed that two egrets had also joined me and were following the movement of the JCB closely. As the JCB clawed soil aside they would fly closer and move around in the freshly cleared soil.

While I had visited the site frequently in the past weeks, this was the first time I saw the egrets at the site - why did they show up all of a sudden, I wondered ?

Now egrets are also called cattle egrets since these bird tend to follow cattle around and remove ticks and flies from their body and consume them. They pick off small insects that the cattle flush while grazing. Egrets seem to have figured out that JCBs also disturb the soil and therefore similar to cattle, expose insects that are otherwise burrowed in the soil.

The next time you see egrets at a construction site, look for how these birds help themselves to the spoils uncovered by the earth moving equipment !

...The Wanaka tree

...The fall of Pride rock