When Matt Gerrits spotted a brilliant white bird wading through the shallows at Petersburg’s Blind Slough on Dec. 5, he initially thought it might be a rare white heron. A closer look revealed something equally surprising: a great egret, thousands of miles from its usual range.

Gerrits, knowing Petersburg birder Brad Hunter’s passion for birds, immediately sent him a message about the unusual sighting.

“Lucky for me, there is now cell coverage at the swan observatory,” Hunter said he rushed out the road toward the possible egret, “and sure as heck, it was a great egret, a pure white bird nearly as tall as the Great Blue Herons.”

“When I first saw it, I thought, oh, it’s way out of range,” Hunter said. After examining his photos more closely at home, he noticed a key identifying characteristic. The bird showed yellow coloration in its legs and tibia, whereas egrets from Florida and the Gulf Coast have entirely black legs.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, this leg coloration points to the alba subspecies, which typically ranges from central Europe to central Asia. Great egrets, with their S-curved necks and long bills, can have a wingspan of almost five feet and stand three feet tall.

Hunter, who is connected to birder networks across Alaska, had been following reports of four great egrets spotted near the end of the Aleutian Islands in October. Then came egret sightings in Juneau and Ketchikan.

The likely connection? Typhoon Halong, a massive cyclone that tracked into the Aleutians and Bering Sea on Oct. 11.

“This large cyclone blew a lot of birds toward Alaska,” Hunter explained. “That’s often how we get really odd Asian species — through storms that blow them this way, often in the fall.”

The first four observed egrets are still being spotted in the Aleutians, while others have been documented in Kodiak, Dillingham, Juneau, Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Ketchikan, and now Petersburg.

Hunter returned to Blind Slough for four consecutive days, finally getting close enough for quality photographs. Throughout this time, he was in communication with other birders statewide, sharing observations and comparing notes. The sighting went out on Alaska’s rare bird alert system, generating excitement among ornithologists across the state, as only around 10 to 20 great egret sightings have been recorded in Alaska.

This bird appeared to be healthy and a successful hunter. Gerrits observed the bird spearing many small fish in Blind Slough, as did Hunter.

“I don’t think it was starving,” Hunter said. “I think it was doing fairly well here.”

The egret hasn’t been spotted since the snowstorm arrived a couple of weeks ago. Hunter and other birders suspect the bird likely moved south ahead of the storm.

“My guess is this bird had a pretty good chance of moving south, which it seemed to have been doing, staying ahead of the winter weather and doing okay.” Hunter said.

For Hunter, the egret sighting represents an opportunity to contribute to the scientific understanding of bird movements and populations through eBird, a global database managed by Cornell University that has transformed modern birding since its creation in the early 2000s.

The platform allows birders worldwide to record observations, upload photos and audio recordings, and access historical data to track species movements and population trends. During the egret influx this fall, Hunter could query the database to see where other sightings were occurring across Alaska.

“It’s just an interesting phenomenon,” Hunter said of being able to follow the sightings as they developed. The database allows birders to search by species, location and time period, revealing patterns like typical arrival dates for migrating birds or unusual out-of-range sightings.

Unusual sightings like the great egret are flagged for review by regional volunteers who verify identifications before confirming records. The system relies on the integrity of its contributors.

“At the heart of it is accuracy,” Hunter said about what makes good citizen science. “People that put effort and energy into validating or making sure what they see is accurate.”

The platform links with other Cornell resources, including the popular Merlin app, which can identify birds by their calls or from photographs.

“My number one (birding priority) is to improve the knowledge base for our home area,” Hunter said. “Petersburg, Wrangell, Stikine River — there are very few people doing it.”

Despite some major migratory bird hot spots like the Stikine River delta, the Central Southeast Alaska area remains understudied compared to more populous regions. While the ebird database has grown tremendously and now includes some historical data from the early 1900s, significant gaps remain.

Last weekend marked another important citizen science project for birders: the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count, which is conducted nationwide, including volunteer teams looking and taking notes in Wrangell and Petersburg who went out Saturday, Dec. 20.