White Ibis

About the White Ibis

The adult White Ibis is unmistakable: all white with black wingtips, a long decurved bill, and bare red-orange face, bill, and legs that flush brighter in breeding season. Immatures are brown above and white below, molting patchily into adult plumage over their first years.

Ibis feed by probing soft mud and shallow water, locating crayfish, crabs, and aquatic insects by feel with the sensitive curved bill. They are highly social at every stage - feeding in loose lines, commuting in V-formations, and nesting in dense colonies in coastal shrubs and trees.

In Texas the White Ibis is a year-round resident of the coast, common in marshes, tidal flats, and wet fields, and it increasingly wanders to inland wetlands after the breeding season.