Which is the Real Image? Egret at Sunrise

Below are 4 images.

Only one is real. I know this because I took it myself.

My photo is of an egret on the hunt for breakfast at sunrise along the banks of the Mississippi River near Alton, IL.

The other 3 images are AI-generated. I created them using Ideogram.ai and ChatGPTChatGPT is an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, designed to understand and generate human... More.

Which one do you think is the real image? See the answer below!

The real image of the egret is:

Image #1

Some clues that give away the AI images:

✅ 1. The Bird Itself: Not a Great Blue Heron

• #1 (REAL): The bird in the real photo is a Great White Egret, which has a more slender build and lacks the shaggy chest plumes and bulkier profile of a Great Blue Heron.
• AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) is basically when computers get smart—really smart. Imagine if your c... More Clue: When I asked AI to describe the real image (I use this description to create the AI images), it assumed the bird is a Great Blue Heron. Which it isn’t. But all three AI images (#2, #3, #4) depict birds with the heavier bodies, thicker necks, and stringy chest feathers typical of Great Blue Herons.

✅ Lesson: This is a powerful example of AI image tools “hallucinating” details based on assumptions — in this case, labeling the real egret as a heron and generating matching birds to fit the wrong species.

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💧 2. Water Behavior and Reflection

• #1 (REAL):
  • The reflections are irregular, rippled, and don’t perfectly mirror the bird — especially the legs and beak area.
  • There’s visible texture in the water, including tiny droplets trailing off the beak and realistic disruption from the leg movements.
• AI:
  • #2 and #4 have reflections that are too smooth and symmetrical, like digital cutouts.
  • #3 tries to show ripple interaction, but it’s oddly isolated and doesn’t affect the full reflection.

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✨ 3. Feather and Silhouette Accuracy

#1: The silhouette is clean and anatomically correct, with no excessive fringe or artificial exaggeration of feathers. The tail and wing tips are soft and subtle.

AI:

#2 and #3 both show overly dramatic, wispy feathers on the chest or tail — likely an overcorrection for “realism.”

#4’s head looks cartoonishly oversized, and the feather outline is too bold and smoothed.

Egrets vs Herons vs Cranes

Unless you’re a birder, it’s tough to tell the difference between the main types of wading birds (clearly even AI can’t tell the difference!).

This video provides a great overview of the differences between these majestic birds:

More From the Senior Tech Cafe ‘Real or AI?’ Challenge

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