White-faced Ibis

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Jim Flynn

Glossy Ibis, left, White-faced Ibis, right.
Jim Flynn

Jim Flynn

Rusty Trump

Earl Horn

White-faced Ibis, left, White Ibis, center, Glossy Ibis, right.
Jim Flynn

On March 19, 2002 I headed down to Eufaula NWR's (ENWR) Bradley Unit (Stewart Co.) to check mainly for rails, shorebirds, and neotropic migrants. I had been there a couple weeks before when the refuge staff had just started draining the impoundments and figured the habitat would altered a good bit in the coming days and might be worth checking.

I arrived at 6:45AM and birded around most of the dikes and was having a good day, but I wanted to check out the ponds north of the cross-dike (where the silos are) one more time given that they were foggy earlier that morning. As I got to the western-most pond (around 9AM) on the north side of the dike I picked up a Plegadis ibis several yards off with some other waders. I could tell this was a juvenile bird and knew I wouldn't be able confirm the species without extensive observation. Through my scope I could tell (or thought I could tell) that the bird's lores had a pink/peach coloration and that the face had basically no pale blue/white contour.

I started to get a bit anxious and tromped down into the bed of the impoundment and followed the shoreline to get closer. I was able to make out a brownish-red eye. That helped. The bird flushed and flew to a pond on the south side of the dike. I got pictures from about 40 yards away as it flew by. The lighting was horrible-very overcast. So I got back to the dike and watched a bit more. The bird flew back to the north side. At this point I'd seen what I wanted to see and felt that I should leave the bird alone so that others could get down to help confirm this as a White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi).

Most field guides and other sources state that juveniles of White-faced and Glossy Ibises (Plegadis falcinellus) are indistinguishable in the field. I figured the best thing to do was to get others down here to get a consensus on the field marks.
I called several birders to let them know that there was an interesting ibis at the Bradley that warranted some attention due to a few apparent field marks. There aren't too many records of inland Glossy's in the state (I had one at ENWR 8/4/00) and there weren't any for White-faced, so this would have been a first state record for the latter.

Giff Beaton, Tom Egan, Pierre Howard and Deb Zaremba were able to get down there and meet me the next day. The lighting was much better that day and with five of us observing this bird both feeding and making close passes in flight, we all agreed that this was indeed a White-faced Ibis-a long overdue species for Georgia considering the number of other sightings throughout the eastern United States.

As far as documentation is concerned, given that my photos from the initial find date were barely diagnostic at best, I was fortunate that others were able to get some better shots of the bird when I met them there Sunday, March 24. As a bonus, Bob Zaremba found an adult Glossy Ibis (rare in its own right as stated above) on Sunday, and later in morning it too joined the White-faced for a great comparison between not only the species but an immature and an adult bird.

Description

Body color - "Frosted" chocolate brown with a wash of green in the wings. The top and back of the head and upper neck were streaked with broken white lines.

Facial features - Rosy-peach colored lores, brownish-red eyes, and no trace of highlight around the facial contour.

Legs - Brown/brick red.

Bill - light grey-brown

Voice - The bird did vocalize several times with a quick nasal "waa" in flight.

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