Life is like a black hole. You don’t know what lies ahead. You can’t ever turn back. All you can do is move forward.

— Hiroshi Yamamoto-Author of The Stories of Ibis

A far as you could see — across fields and lawn — was deluged with standing water after days of torrential rains. Halfway between the house and the lake, the Pekin ducks were sitting low in the grass… like sitting ducks you might say. It upsets me for them to forage toward the house because it’s not safe for them to leave the water. Still, they do. Off to the side of the ducks a flock of white birds were also foraging. Sam noticed and asked, “What kind of birds are those?” I answered, “Cattle egrets.” Cattle egrets are plentiful in the Prairie. Sam thought they looked a bit different, maybe larger than our usual cattle egrets. “Ibis,” he said. “Those are ibis. I’ve seen them in south Florida. Odd that they’re here.”

Upon closer inspection he was right. They had long red legs, a red bill, and red around the eyes. They had a white body, not exactly slim, and black tipped wings. They stood about two feet tall, quite a bit taller than a cattle egret though it was hard to tell while they had their heads down grazing. When they did lift their heads, you could see the bill was long and curved. Observing these unusual visitors necessitated a visit to the bird book.

The birds were definitely white ibis mostly found in Florida and along the southeastern coastline. Feeding in flooded pastures, grasses, fields and along freshwater lakes is common. The bird will hunt in freshwater areas as well as salt or brackish water. Our visitors are very social animals. They rest, sleep and feed in flocks. They feed on insects, worms, snails, small snakes and fish. Even their young will forage on their own after seven weeks. They nest in trees with the male ibis gathering the building material of sticks and branches. The female will help some, but her job is mainly to design the nest to her specifications. They’ll spend about a week readying the family’s abode. The male will be quite protective of his female mate during the breeding season. The ibis usually has about three eggs incubated for about three to four weeks. The young ibis’s bill is straight until it curves at about two weeks old. The bill acts like a pair of tweezers when they snatch their prey. The fledgling birds learn to fly between four to eight weeks and then they are on their own. When the ibis are in flight their neck is stretched out long compared to some shorebirds who hunch their necks into their shoulders. The birds are thought of as wanders when not during breeding season. They change locations from year to year

The oldest recorded white ibis in the wild was 16-years-old, found in Florida in 1972. The bird had been banded in Alabama in 1956. In 1926 the University of Miami had unofficially adopted the white ibis as the school mascot. It was named so for exemplary bravery in the face of hurricanes. In 1957 the ibis, Sebastian, was made official.   

Shannon Rule Bardwell is a writer, who lives in the Prairie. Her e-mail is [email protected].