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To the Beauty of Birds

The Scarlet Ibis Eudocimus ruber is one of the beautiful of the Ibis. Its range is along the northern edge of South America, Trinidad, Tobago and south Florida. It is the national bird of Trinidad and Tobago and is closely related to the American White Ibis. Its color is enhanced by a diet of small crustaceans.
The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) is a species of ibis in the bird family Threskiornithidae. It inhabits tropical South America and islands of the Caribbean. In form it resembles most of the other twenty-seven extant species of ibis, but its remarkably brilliant scarlet coloration makes it unmistakable.

This medium-sized wader is a hardy, numerous, and prolific bird, and it has protected status around the world. Its IUCN status is Least Concern. The legitimacy of Eudocimus ruber as a biological classification, however, is in dispute. Traditional Linnaean taxonomy classifies it as a unique species, but an increasing number of scientists have moved to reclassify it as a subspecies of a more general American ibis species, along with its close relative Eudocimus albus.

The species was first classified by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. Initially given the binomial nomenclature of Scolopax rubra (the name incorporates the Latin adjective ruber, "red"), the species was later designated Guara rubra and ultimately Eudocimus ruber.

Biologically the scarlet ibis is very closely related to the American white ibis (Eudocimus albus) and is sometimes considered conspecific with it, leaving modern science divided over their taxonomy. The two birds each have exactly the same bones, claws, beaks, feather arrangements and other features – their one marked difference lies in their pigmentation. Traditional taxonomy has regarded the two as separate and distinct.

Early ornithological field research revealed no natural crossbreeding among the red and white, lending support to the two-species viewpoint. More recent observation, however, has documented significant crossbreeding and hybridization in the wild. Researchers Cristina Ramo and Benjamin Busto found evidence of interbreeding in a population where the ranges of the scarlet and white ibises overlap along the coast and in the Llanos in Colombia and Venezuela. They observed individuals of the two species mating and pairing, as well as hybrid ibises with pale orange plumage, or white plumage with occasional orange feathers, and have proposed that these birds be classified as a single species. Hybridization has been known to occur frequently in captivity. However, the two color forms persist in the wild despite overlapping ranges and hybrid offspring having a distinctive color type, so according to the cohesion species concept they would be functionally different species.

Adult plumage is virtually all scarlet. The feathers may show various tints and shades, but only the tips of their wings deviate from their namesake color. A small but reliable marking, these wingtips are a rich inky black (or occasionally dark blue) and are found only on the longest primaries – otherwise the birds' coloration is "a vivid orange-red, almost luminous in quality." Scarlet ibises have red bills and feet however the bill is sometimes blackish, especially toward the end. They have a long, narrow, decurved bill. Their legs and neck are long and extended in flight.

Adults are 22–25 in long, and the males, slightly larger than females, typically weigh about 3.1 lb. Their bills are also on average around 22% longer than those of females.

The life span of the scarlet ibis is approximately sixteen years in the wild and twenty years in captivity. Though it spends most of its time on foot or wading through water, the bird is a very strong flyer: they are highly migratory and easily capable of long-distance flight. They move as flocks in a classic V formation.

The range of the scarlet ibis is very large, and colonies are found throughout vast areas of South America and the Caribbean islands. Native flocks exist in Argentina; Brazil; Colombia; French Guiana; Guyana; Suriname; and Venezuela, as well as the islands of the Netherlands Antilles, and Trinidad and Tobago. Flocks gather in wetlands and other marshy habitats, including mud flats, shoreline and rainforest.

To attract a female, the male will perform a variety of mating rituals such as "preening, shaking, bill popping, head rubbing, and high flights. As with most birds, mating does not involve any coupling or insertion: instead, a transfer of seminal fluids occurs during external contact between the cloacal openings. After a gestation period of five to six days, the female lays a clutch of three to five smooth, matte eggs which typically incubate for 19–23 days. After a successful courtship, pairs remain faithful and cohabitant, sharing parental responsibilities for the young.

Their distinctive long, thin bills are used to probe for food in soft mud or under plants. Popularly imagined to be eating only shrimp, a recent study in Llanos has found that much of their diet consists of insects, of which the majority were scarabs and ground beetles .

They do, however, eat much shrimp and other similar fare like small crabs, mollusks and other crustaceans. The large quantity of shrimp and other red shellfish produces a surfeit of astaxanthin, a carotenoid which is the key component of the birds' red pigmentation. When kept in zoos, the birds' diet often contains beetroot and carrot supplement to maintain color vibrancy in their plumage.

For protection, flocks often congregate in large colonies of several thousand individuals. They also regularly share time among other avian creatures, gaining additional safety through numbers: storks, spoonbills, egrets, herons and ducks are all common companions during feedings and flights.

The scarlet ibis and the cocrico are the national birds of Trinidad and Tobago. Both birds are featured on the coat of arms of Trinidad and Tobago. The cocrico is only found on Tobago. The scarlet ibis is associated with Trinidad; there are not documented records of the scarlet ibis on Tobago for the last fifteen years.
An important local habitat for the scarlet ibis is the wildlife sanctuary of Caroni Swamp of Trinidad, a 199 hectares (490 acres) wetland reserve first designated in 1953 specifically to provide a habitat for the scarlet ibis. This is where all of thee photos were taken.

These were photographed at the LA and San Francisco Zoo.
Those in the 100-400 seris were photographed at Caroni Swamp, Trinidad

Scarlet Ibis