Thursday, October 29, 2009

Ibis

For years we watched these birds as they wandered through our front yard, picking at the ground. sometime 3 sometimes a flock of 20. At certain times of the year they can be found in just about any neighborhood.

Until I became addicted to my camera click, I had no idea what they were. my friend Diane, told me they are Ibis.
On one of our photo trips at Emerson Preserve, these birds were sitting in a dead tree and she said, that is an Ibis. I said get real, you said the white bird with the ugly beak was Ibis. Her reply, was this is a juvenile Ibis.


I said, you mean like in delinquent? are they bad? The answer is they are this color when they are young. In my googleing I found they come in several colors. These are the ones we see the most in our part of Florida.
there are Scarlet, Sacred, American, Australian, Black, Strawnecked, Glossy and even a Northern Bald Ibis. None of which I have seen. I would love to see the red one.
these are American White Ibis and very common in Florida. here is a bit of trivia on the White Ibis that I found on wikipedia
The mascot of the University of Miami is an American White Ibis. The ibis was selected as the school mascot because of its legendary bravery during hurricanes. The ibis is the last sign of wildlife to take shelter before a hurricane hits and the first to reappear once the storm has passed. Miami's sports teams are nicknamed "The Hurricanes".[7]

4 comments:

Beverly said...

I love ibis. like you said, they can be seen everywhere. That's interesting to know why U of M has it for a mascot.

Sunny said...

The Ibis is a very cool bird. I've never seen one in person, I'm not even sure if I've seen one at all other than your pictures.
Thanks for the great photos.
Sunny :)

Ginny Hartzler said...

I was hoping you would do a post on Ibis. These are awesome. It is so wild to think that they are commonplace to you, and in your yards!! We would probably faint if we saw one here. Here's something interesting. Look at the picture of the white ibis walking. Their knees bend backwards from the way ours do!! This is true for most tall birds. These are strange and wonderful to me.

Ohmydearests said...

our Sacred ibis looks very similar to these... the young is very similar to our hadeda. :0)