After the heavy rains earlier this month, when remnants of a Pacific hurricane flooded much of the city, Maricopa’s flatlands have been teeming with unexpected life. Among the most striking visitors: great egrets, the tall, snow-white wading birds more commonly seen in coastal wetlands than desert farmland.

The birds have been sighted in low-lying areas where water still lingers, including flooded fields near Hartman and Steen Roads, where InMaricopa photographed a flock of egrets on the way back to the office from a Tuesday car crash.

When water returns, so do the egrets

The sight of egrets in Maricopa isn’t new, but it’s always surprising. As longtime Arizona naturalist Steven Kessel explains, wading birds like herons and egrets have managed to “establish a toehold in our desert” by adapting to the limited water sources humans have introduced.

When the Gila and Santa Cruz Rivers dried up under decades of groundwater pumping and diversion, canals and agricultural basins elsewhere in the state offered replacement habitat. Over time, egrets followed these human-made water routes inland, venturing deeper into dry country than nature ever intended.

So, when Maricopa’s washes flood, they act like temporary extensions of those migration corridors. The birds drift in from wetter regions, drawn by the glimmer of new water.

Visitors on borrowed time

Floods like this month’s create brief but rich feeding grounds. In the shallow water that pools along fields and roadways, egrets hunt fish, frogs, tadpoles and insects with a lightning jab of their long yellow bills. For as long as the water lasts, they stay.

Then, when the washes dry, they move on. Though some remain in Arizona year-round, great egrets are migratory birds that generally pass through Maricopa from late fall through early spring, or any time heavy rain temporarily recharges the lowlands with standing water.

The Santa Cruz, Lower Santa Cruz and Vekol Washes, farms on the undeveloped East Side and in Hidden Valley are all good places to watch after storms. [Read more about Maricopa’s birders.]

Fun facts

• Despite their large size (over 4 feet tall with a 50-inch wingspan), great egrets weigh barely 3 pounds, thanks to hollow bones.

• They can stand motionless for hours, waiting stock-still for prey to swim close before striking.

• They often nest in colonies with birds of other species, 40 feet up in the trees.