White Ibis - Severin Uebbing
Report

Contributor

Date

Location

Plum Bank Marsh at South View Circle
Middlesex, Connecticut, United States
Media from this location Illustrated Checklist
Map
Map Coordinates: 41.27955, -72.3862908
Age and sex
Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1
Behaviors
Flying

Observation details

Juvenile seen briefly in a channel. Flew east over a swale. Found after a report on iNaturalist yesterday. Photos. This fall has seen a large incursion of White Ibis into the Northeast, with records with many individuals from Massachusetts (since 8/2, in addition to spring records), Maine (since 8/11), and New Hampshire (since 8/12). White Ibis is known to undergo post-breeding dispersal, but records this far up north are quite rare; the ARCC lists eleven accepted previous records, the last one from July 2016. Our own (and presumably others) efforts to find White Ibis in CT earlier in August were unsuccessful. On 8/21, a photo of two juvenile White Ibis was posted to iNaturalist which Alex Lin-Moore picked up and shared in local messaging groups. The location was obscured, and a large box of uncertainty hid the exact location, so several people reached out to the observer for location info. Fighting the odds, Frank Mantlik searched marshes between Old Saybrook and East Lyme without success. Around 4 pm, Stefan Martin relayed exact location info he had received from the observer and we and others searched the area. This was the first spot we got to, as it provides an open view over some marsh at the end of a road. A small path leads into the marsh and we spotted a juvenile White Ibis along a channel. It flew shortly after east over a swale, so Joe Attwater (who had arrived less than a minute late for the bird) and we went over to search from road ends on the other side, where we picked up two juvenile White Ibis in the marsh, which could subsequently be seen by others. There are several birds lingering in the area; the original observer on iNaturalist reported seeing up to six individuals (on 8/21).

Technical information

Model
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Lens
EF400mm f/5.6L USM
ISO
125
Focal length
400 mm
Flash
Flash did not fire
f-stop
f/6.3
Shutter speed
1/1000 sec
Dimensions
2055 pixels x 1372 pixels
Original file size
755.47 KB