[rustbucket]

I've never seen a Yellow Crowned use bait. They are the premier crawdad catchers around here though, although I've seen Grebes, Ibis, and even American Kestrels catch crawdads. I usually try to go on a picture taking expedition in late May or early June when the crawdads are in shallow water and apparently easy for the birds to catch.

Snowy Egrets vibrate their feet in shallow water to scare prey (crawdads, minnows, tadpoles, small fish) and make them move. That's a wicked looking beak on the Snowy below.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Snowy Egrets are beautiful but they're agressive little demons, I've seen the males fight over territory and it gets bloody.

When I worked with wildlife rescue I learned oretty quick to cover the head on any egret or heron first, when they get scared they go right for your eyes. A beak in the eye could kill you, sure would take an eye out. I lost several good shirts if that is all I happened to have to throw over them.