Originally native to parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it has undergone a rapid expansion in its distribution and successfully colonised much of the rest of the world in the last century.

Their feeding habitats include seasonally inundated grasslands, pastures, farmlands, wetlands, and rice paddies.

They often accompany cattle or other large mammals, catching insect and small vertebrate prey disturbed by these animals.

[6] The eastern and western cattle egrets were split by McAllan and Bruce,[7] but were regarded as conspecific by almost all other recent authors until the publication of the influential Birds of South Asia.

During the breeding season, adults of the western cattle egret develop orange-buff plumes on the back, breast, and crown, and the bill, legs, and irises become bright red for a brief period prior to pairing.

[18][19] The positioning of the egret's eyes allows for binocular vision during feeding,[20] and physiological studies suggest that they may be capable of crepuscular or nocturnal activity.

[21] Adapted to foraging on land, they have lost the ability possessed by their wetland relatives to accurately correct for light refraction by water.

[22] The western cattle egret has undergone one of the most rapid and wide-reaching natural expansions of any bird species.

[24] Cattle egrets were first sighted in the Americas on the boundary of Guiana and Suriname in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic Ocean.

[26] The species first arrived in North America in 1941 (these early sightings were originally dismissed as escapees), bred in Florida in 1953, and spread rapidly, breeding for the first time in Canada in 1962.

[29] This trend has continued and cattle egrets have become more numerous in southern Britain with influxes in some numbers during the nonbreeding seasons of 2007/08 and 2016/17.

[33] The massive and rapid expansion of the cattle egret's range is due to its relationship with humans and their domesticated animals.

Originally adapted to a commensal relationship with large grazing and browsing animals, it was easily able to switch to domesticated cattle and horses.

[34] Many populations of cattle egrets are highly migratory and dispersive,[23] and this has helped the genus' range expansion.

[37] Although the cattle egret sometimes feeds in shallow water, unlike most herons, it is typically found in fields and dry grassy habitats, reflecting its greater dietary reliance on terrestrial insects rather than aquatic prey.

[42] The cattle egret gives a quiet, throaty rick-rack call at the breeding colony, but is otherwise largely silent.

[23] The colonies are usually found in woodlands near lakes or rivers, in swamps, or on small inland or coastal islands, and are sometimes shared with other wetland birds, such as herons, egrets, ibises, and cormorants.

[45] The male displays in a tree in the colony, using a range of ritualised behaviours, such as shaking a twig and sky-pointing (raising his bill vertically upwards),[46] and the pair forms over 3–4 days.

[23] Also, evidence of low levels of intraspecific brood parasitism has been found, with females laying eggs in the nests of other cattle egrets.

[47] In the dryer habitats with fewer amphibians, the diet may lack sufficient vertebrate content and may cause bone abnormalities in growing chicks due to calcium deficiency.

[16] The cattle egret feeds on a wide range of prey, particularly insects, especially grasshoppers, crickets, flies (adults and maggots), beetles, and moths, as well as spiders, frogs, fish, crayfish, small snakes, lizards and earthworms.

Where numerous large animals are present, cattle egrets selectively forage around species that move at around 5–15 steps per minute, avoiding faster and slower moving herds; in Africa, cattle egrets selectively forage behind plains zebras, waterbuck, blue wildebeest and Cape buffalo.

[62] Birds of the Seychelles race also indulge in some kleptoparasitism, chasing the chicks of sooty terns and forcing them to disgorge food.

[63] Pairs of crested caracaras have been observed chasing cattle egrets in flight, forcing them to the ground, and killing them.

[1] The expansion and establishment of the genus over large ranges has led it to be classed as an invasive species, although little, if any, impact has been noted yet.

[67] Cattle egrets are an occurring traditional motif in fishing boats among fishermen of the Malay Peninsula east coast who believed them as a symbol of good luck and fortune.

[70] It was the benefit to stock that prompted ranchers and the Hawaiian Board of Agriculture and Forestry to release the western cattle egret in Hawaii.