After all the Panama City Beach posts, I completely forgot about making a post on the White-faced Ibis, which now seems like the distant past. October 27 marked the addition of this species to my life list when Blake Mann and I saw the bird, which stayed at Hillman Marsh for about a week, fly over the northwest bridge near the entrance to the conservation area. The weather conditions were quite poor as the sky was overcast and lighting was terrible. Also, where the bird first landed, it was very difficult to see its pinkish face (no white due to it being in nonbreeding plumage). Needless to say, we couldn't detect the iris colour at that distance either. Fortunately, the bird eventually flew closer while hanging out with a group of Greater Yellowlegs and at that point, I could see the pinkish face through my scope. Blake has photos on his blog that you can see here.
This record accounts for very few Ontario sightings and I'm relieved that I was able to see this particular bird (I would have had trouble making it to see the Dundas Marsh bird and I missed Pelee's former sightings). I now have Glossy and White-faced Ibises in the Pelee Birding Circle and it's always a pleasure to study a new species we don't often get to see.
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There is a better photo taken by Allen Woodliffe of the Ibis on my CKTimes column! Click on the CKTimes Nature Link at the right of Jeremy's blog page. Look in "view archives" and find the column entitled Finch Fall(out).
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