Aging and identification of Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus)


Fig. 1 and 2. A couple of shots of an oddly colored bird. The bill and legs had a strange bronze color not seen on any of the other birds sharing the pool. Is this staining? Unfortunately the light was fading and it was struggle to get sharp images. The bird seemed more active than any of the others and fed almost continuously.



Fig. 3 and 4. What age or plumage is this?  Not the legend is incorrect. The bird was photographed at Cow Meadow, not Jamaica Bay.
 

Click here to see ADULT PLUMAGE GLOSSY IBIS.
Click here to see JUVENILE PLUMAGED GLOSSY IBIS.

Literature
Kaufman, K. (1990) 'The dark Ibises' in A Field Guide to Advanced Birding. Chapter 5, p39-42, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.
Sibley, D. A. (2000) 'The Sibley Guide to Birds', Knopf, Inc.

Photography: All shots were taken through a Kowa TSN-4 scope (at 20X) using a Nikon Coolpix 880 digital camera. Images were cropped and sharpened slightly using Adobe Photoshop 5.0.

All images and text copyright of Angus Wilson/Ocean Wanderers© 2002.
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