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Showing posts with label Ibis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ibis. Show all posts

Monday, November 26, 2007

White Ibis at Dawn, Fort Meyers, Florida

Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) is a wading bird of the ibis family Threskiornithidae, also known as the "Sheep bird". They are widespread in eastern and south western Australia.

This ibis occurs in marshy wetlands, often near open grasslands and has become common in Australian east coast city parks and rubbish dumps since 1998, which along with its large size has has led to the nickname of "Tip Turkey". The Australian Ibis is known to have a putrid smell of rotting fish or rubbish dumps.

This ibis feeds on various fish, frogs and other water creatures, and also insects and garbage.

This species has a bald black head and neck and a long black downcurved beak. The body plumage is white with some black feathers near the tail. The legs are dark and red skin is visible on the underside of the wing. The head and neck are feathered in juveniles.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Scarlet Ibises, Venezuela

Eudocimus ruber) is a species of ibis that occurs in tropical South America and also Trinidad and Tobago. It is the national bird of Trinidad and is featured on the Trinidad and Tobago coat of arms along with Tobago's national bird Rufous-vented Chachalaca.

Adults are 56-61 cm long and weigh 650g. They are completely scarlet, except for black wing-tips. They nest in trees, laying two to four eggs. Their diet includes crustaceans and similar small marine animals. A juvenile Scarlet Ibis is grey/white in colour; as it grows the ingestion of red crabs in the tropical swamps gradually produces the characteristic scarlet plumage.

This species is very closely related to the American White Ibis and is sometimes considered conspecific with it.

While the species may have occurred as a natural vagrant in southern Florida in the late 1800s, all recent reports of the species in North America have been of introduced or escaped birds. Eggs from Trinidad were placed in White Ibis nests in Hialeah Park in 1962, and the resulting population hybridised with the native ibis, producing "pink ibis" that are still occasionally seen.

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