Scarlet
Ibis
Photographed at
Toronto Zoo, Toronto, Canada Sep 2011
Bird Kingdom, Niagara Falls, Canada Feb 2012
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.
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