Thursday, November 13, 2008

White-faced Ibis?

I just found out from Jeff Lewis, our bird club President, that the Glossy Ibis that I saw at the end of the Wings Over Water birding festival last week may in fact be a White-faced Ibis. These two species are almost identical, except that the White-faced has a reddish face and eye as opposed to the Glossy's dark face and eye.

Confusing? Yes, but I am including pictures (that are not mine.) from the Carolina Bird Club website showing the difference (hopefully) between the 2 species. The bird that I saw is at the top and below left is a Glossy, and below right is a White-faced. What do you think? It doesn't help very much that the bird that we spotted is a juvenile.













It would be a very good sighting if the bird turned out to be a White-faced, and only the second recorded sighting in North Carolina. Although these birds are quite common in the SW United States, they are rarely found this far east.

2 comments:

Mom said...

VERY INTERESTING BEN, Now I have 2 blogs to read!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

WOW you wrote this awhile ago..and still enjoying it all these years later! AWESOME INFO..i am a neophyte birder..lol this HELPS