Audubon's Birds/BIRDSVER1_3.BIN/dp/0061/00616.txt

Text File | 1992-08-27 | 23KB | 339 lines

$Unique_ID{BRD00616}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The White Ibis}
$Subject{Tantalinae; Ibis; Eudocimus; alba; albus; White Ibis}
$Journal{Birds of America:  Volume VI}
$Volume{Vol. 6:54-63}
$Family{Tantalinae}
$Genus{Ibis; Eudocimus}
$Species{alba; albus}
$Common_Name{White Ibis}
$Log{
Plate CCCLX*00616P1.scf
Family*00612.txt
Genus*00613.txt
Figures 1 & 2*0061601.scf}

       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       B I R D S   O F   A M E R I C A .

                   By John James Audubon, F. R. SS.  L. & E.

                   ------------------------------------------
                                   VOL.  VI.
                        --------------------------------


                                THE WHITE IBIS.
                                 [White Ibis.]


                                IBIS ALBA, Linn.
                               [Eudocimus albus.]


                      PLATE CCCLX.--ADULT MALE AND YOUNG.


     Sandy Island is remarkable as a breeding-place for various species of water
and land birds.  It is about a mile in length, not more than a hundred yards
broad, and in form resembles a horse-shoe, the inner curve of which looks toward
Cape Sable in Florida, from which it is six miles distant.  At low water, it is
surrounded to a great distance by mud-flats abounding in food for wading and
swimming birds, while the plants, the fruits, and the insects of the island
itself, supply many species that are peculiar to the land.  Besides the White
Ibis, we found breeding there the Brown Pelican, the Purple, the Louisiana, the
White, and the Green Herons, two species of Gallinule, the Cardinal Grosbeak,
Crows, and Pigeons.  The vegetation consists of a few tall mangroves, thousands
of wild plum trees, several species of cactus, some of them nearly as thick as a
man's body, and more than twenty feet high, different sorts of smilax,
grape-vines, cane, palmettoes, Spanish bayonets, and the rankest nettles I ever
saw,--all so tangled together, that I leave you to guess how difficult it was
for my companions and myself to force a passage through them in search of birds'
nests, which, however, we effected, although the heat was excessive, and the
stench produced by the dead birds, putrid eggs, and the natural effluvia of the
Ibises, was scarcely sufferable.  But then, the White Ibis was there, and in
thousands; and, although I already knew the bird, I wished to study its manners
once more, that I might be enabled to present you with an account of them, which
I now proceed to do,--endeavouring all the while to forget the pain of the
numerous scratches and lacerations of my legs caused by the cactuses of Sandy
Island.
     As we entered that well-known place, we saw nests on every bush, cactus, or
tree.  Whether the number was one thousand or ten I cannot say, but this I well
know:--I counted forty-seven on a single plum-tree.  These nests of the White
Ibis measure about fifteen inches in their greatest diameter, and are formed of
dry twigs intermixed with fibrous roots and green branches of the trees growing
on the island, which this bird easily breaks with its bill; the interior, which
is flat, being finished with leaves of the cane and some other plants.  The bird
breeds only once in the year, and the full number of its eggs is three.  They
measure two inches and a quarter in length, with a diameter of one inch and
five-eighths, are rough to the touch, although not granulated, of a dull white
colour, blotched with pale yellow, and irregularly spotted with deep
reddish-brown.  They afford excellent eating, although when boiled they do not
look inviting, the white resembling a livid-coloured jelly, and the yolk being
of a reddish-orange, the former wonderfully transparent, instead of being opaque
like that of most other birds.  The eggs are deposited from the 10th of April to
the 1st of May, and incubation is general by the 10th of the latter month.  The
young birds, which are at first covered with thick down of a dark grey colour,
are fed by regurgitation.  They take about five weeks to be able to fly,
although they leave the nest at the end of three weeks, and stand on the
branches, or on the ground, waiting the arrival of their parents with food,
which consists principally of small fiddler crabs and crayfish.  On some
occasions, I have found them at this age miles away from the breeding-places,
and in this state they are easily caught.  As soon as the young are able to
provide for themselves, the old birds leave them, and the different individuals
are then seen searching for food apart.  While nestling or in the act of
incubating, these Ibises are extremely gentle and unwary, unless they may have
been much disturbed, for they almost allow you to touch them on the nest.  The
females are silent all the while, but the males evince their displeasure by
uttering sounds which greatly resemble those of the White-headed Pigeon, and
which may be imitated by the syllables crooh, croo, croo.  The report of a gun
scarcely alarms them at first, although at all other periods these birds are shy
and vigilant in the highest degree.
     The change in the colouring of the bill, legs, and feet of this bird, that
takes place in the breeding-season, is worthy of remark, the bill being then of
a deep orange-red, and the legs and feet of a red nearly amounting to carmine.
The males at this season have the gular pouch of a rich orange-colour, and
somewhat resembling in shape that of the Frigate Pelican, although
proportionally less.  During winter, these parts are of a dull flesh-colour.
The irides also lose much of their clear blue, and resume in some degree the
umber colour of the young birds.  I am thus particular in these matters, because
it is doubtful if any one else has ever paid attention to them.
     While breeding, the White Ibises go to a great distance in search of food
for their young, flying in flocks of several hundreds.  Their excursions take
place at particular periods, determined by the decline of the tides, when all
the birds that are not sitting go off, perhaps twenty or thirty miles, to the
great mud flats, where they collect abundance of food, with which they return
the moment the tide begins to flow.  As the birds of this genus feed by night as
well as by day, the White Ibis attends the tides at whatever hour they may be.
Some of those which bred on Sandy Key would go to the keys next the Atlantic,
more than forty miles distant, while others made for the everglades; but they
never went off singly.  They rose with common accord from the breeding-ground,
forming themselves into long lines, often a mile in extent, and soon
disappearing from view.  Soon after the turn of the tide we saw them approaching
in the same order.  Not a note could you have heard on those occasions; yet if
you disturb them when far from their nests, they utter loud hoarse cries
resembling the syllables hunk, hunk, hunk, either while on the ground or as they
fly off.
     The flight of the White Ibis is rapid and protracted.  Like all other
species of the genus, these birds pass through the air with alternate flappings
and sailings; and I have thought that the use of either mode depended upon the
leader of the flock, for, with the most perfect regularity, each individual
follows the motion of that preceding it, so that a constant appearance of
regular undulations is produced through the whole line.  If one is shot at this
time, the whole line is immediately broken up, and for a few minutes all is
disorder; but as they continue their course, they soon resume their former
arrangement.  The wounded bird never attempts to bite or to defend itself in any
manner, although, if only winged, it runs off with more speed than is pleasant
to its pursuer.
     At other times the White Ibis, like the Red and the Wood Ibises, rises to
an immense height in the air, where it performs beautiful evolutions.  After
they have thus, as it were, amused themselves for some time, they glide down
with astonishin