Just a couple of additional points about the White-faced Ibises
that I hadn't seen posted. I was one of those who visited
yesterday evening. I got to the Huntley parking lot at 7:10pm,
afraid that the birds would have taken off at the same time as
the evening before. I ran into Sherman Suter in the parking
lot, and he said they were there when he left. So I high-tailed
it down the trail and got to the boardwalk in time to get great
looks at the 6 birds, with thanks to Howard Elitzak for the use
of his scope.
In any case, the birds took off at 7:22pm, so it was a little later
than the previous day. And I think they would have stuck
around a little longer if they hadn't been spooked by someone
walking on the boardwalk right next to them.
I watched them as they flew off, and was surprised to see a
clear size difference between some of the birds (surprised
because I had forgotten about this potential field mark). But
my observations didn't completely comply with the convention.
From what I could see, 2 of the birds were clearly larger than
the other four. However, White-faced is supposed to be
heavier than Glossy, so one would have expected it to be the
other way around. Also note that for both species of ibis,
males are larger than females. So I'm assuming that the two
bigger birds that I saw in flight were 2 of the 4 White-faceds
and were possibly males. This means that the 2 other White-
faceds were almost exactly the same size as the 2 Glossies. Of
course this is just an assumption and could not be confirmed.
Bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that this field mark can
be of some, but limited, value, and shouldn't be used alone.
Good birding,
Paul Pisano
Arlington
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