A glossy ibis hanging out with a pied grebe.

Two glossy ibis hanging out together. Notice the white trim around the beak area?

I had heard there was a white faced ibis hanging around Wading Bird Way trail at Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland. They are fairly rare here in central Florida. I got to the area thinking maybe it won’t be too hard to find since there aren’t that many glossy ibis around but the marsh area was full of glossy ibis. It wasn’t until I got home and cropped up this picture and noticed it was a white faced. They are similar to the glossy but have more pink around the beak and more white feathers. The adults have red eyes all year round. So this was first sighting for me.

Above is several white ibis feeding with a tricolored heron and a snowy egret.

One of the coolest things I noticed when I first moved here over 10 years ago from Atlanta, was driving through neighborhoods and seeing flocks of white ibis feeding in people’s yards. That was something I didn’t see when I lived in Atlanta. I immediately looked up the bird in my mom’s Florida water bird book to see what it was. For years I thought all ibis where white (or with brown spots if it’s a juvenile). Then I was out in a park years later and saw what looked like a white ibis but it was black, or dark in color. I looked that up and found out it was a glossy ibis. Then I heard about a rare white faced ibis here in the Tampa bay area but I never did see it. Finally, years later I have seen a white faced ibis.