ML611999858

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1

Behaviors

Foraging or eating

Observation details

Continuing, originally found by Steve Droste and Garry Wasko yesterday. Lifer! Appears to be only the second county record if confirmed. Dark ibis with a little bit of pink to its eye and plenty to its legs. Vocalised probably upwards of ten times in my presence, but always when it suddenly and unexpectedly took off; I wish I had a recording to confirm, but this was undoubtedly a white-faced ibis call and not that of a glossy ibis. While I’ve never heard either vocalise before today, the higher pitch of the white-faced is unmistakable. This bird first flew low over my head from the south and called once at about 8:10 AM. It landed along the western edge of the reservoir, just south of the Environmental Center (almost directly at the end of the first dirt trail down to the water if you take the perimeter trail south from the parking lot). This is where it was first found, according to Steve. It stayed here feeding on invertebrates quite energetically for probably about an hour and ten minutes, working the same small spot, and at times walking within about five feet of me. At about 9:20 it heard a crow’s call it clearly didn’t like and called once itself, picking up and flying about fifty feet south down the shoreline. From this point onward the bird’s whole demeanour changed and it was much more frantic as it fed, making vocal, short flights south every few minutes. Al caught up to me at this point and was able to get on the bird for a few minutes as it continued towards the southwest corner of the reservoir. It had almost reached the wooden bridge in this spot when it called repeatedly and took off south across the reservoir, at about 9:45 AM. Two hours of searching along the south side of the reservoir ensued, but the bird could not be found. I am, however, optimistic that it might return to its spot tomorrow morning.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D

Lens

TAMRON SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 A022

ISO

2500

Focal length

600 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/1000 sec

Dimensions

5184 pixels x 3456 pixels

Original file size

5.54 MB