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Telling apart Egrets
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Egrets are white birds in the heron family. There are four main kinds found in South India; Eastern Cattle Egrets, Little Egrets, Medium Egrets and Great Egrets.
Little Egrets are the easiest to differentiate from the rest since they have a fully black beak and black legs while the others have yellow beaks most of the time. If you can see the feet, that is a surefire way to tell since they have yellow feet called "golden" slippers, in contrast to the black legs. During breeding, the males develop two white plumes on the back of the head. They look very graceful, although they make an egregious noise (link). In my opinion "little" is a misnomer since they are actually quite big and frequently bigger than Medium Egrets.
I think it's possible to confuse larger Medium Egrets with Great Egrets and smaller Medium Egrets with Cattle Egrets, especially if the neck is retracted or if it is a picture. However, this should be enough the majority of the time:
Cattle Egrets are small and somewhat stocky. Their necks are not very long. They are frequently found in groups around cattle. I don't see them *in* water very often. During the breeding season, the male turns pink/orangeish and of course then it is easy to differentiate.
Great Egrets are somewhat rarer than the rest and very big, bigger than storks etc. The neck is significantly longer than the body.
The Medium Egret is (true to the name) somewhere in between. It is larger than the Cattle Egret and smaller than the Great Egret, and the neck is also intermediate in that it is usually about smaller to the same size as the body in length (so not as long as the Great Egret's), but thinner and longer than the Cattle Egret's. If you can't tell for sure from size difference, neck length etc. then to differentiate from a Great Egret-- the line below a Great Egret's eye extends further than the eye while for a Medium Egret it stops at the end of eye, and to differentiate from a Cattle Egret-- they have a black tip on the bill whereas Cattle Egrets don't.
Certain morphs of the Pacific Reef Heron can also looks similar to Egrets, so that is something to look out for as well.