Ibis (Scarlet)

The Scarlet Ibis inhabits 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. They are completely scarlet, except for black wing-tips.

They nest in trees, laying two to four eggs. Their diet includes crustaceans and small marine animals. A juvenile Scarlet Ibis is grey and white and 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. 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 hybridized with the native ibis, producing "pink ibises" that are still occasionally seen.

  1 & 2  Photographed at Toronto Zoo, Toronto, ON

  3 Photographed at Bird Kingdom, Niagara Falls, Ontario