Xiamen city bird egret

 Egrets are the world's rare birds. They belong to heron family of bird class. Xiamen boasts small egrets, middle egrets, large egrets, Chinese egrets and gray egrets, which dwell are the only five types of herons ever seen in China. People choose to call them egrets (Bailu in Chinese) collectively because they, except the gray egrets, which have dark gray body-feathers, have beautiful snow-white feathers. The small and midium-sized egrets are of the largest numbers and are seen more frequently. On October 23 of 1986, at the 23rd Session of the Standing Committee of the 8th Municipal People's Congress it was decided that the egret be the City Bird of Xiamen.