The Storks are largely Old World birds, only three of the some twenty known species inhabiting the Western Hemisphere. But one of these is found regularly north of the Rio Grande, the so-called Wood Ibis which is abundant in southern Florida. It lives in flocks and builds a nest of sticks usually in cypress trees, often forty feet from the ground, laying two or three white eggs. When flying the neck is extended. It progresses by alternate flapping and sailing and occasionally soars high overhead in circles, like a Vulture.
The Bitterns and Herons unlike our other long-legged wading birds, fly with a fold in the neck. They belong in two subfamilies, the Botaurinæ and Ardeinæ, respectively. The Bitterns are usually solitary birds inhabiting grassy or reedy marshes where their colors harmonize with their surroundings and render them difficult to see. The American Bittern nests on the ground and lays three to five pale brownish eggs. The Least Bittern usually weaves a platform nest of reeds among rushes growing in the water and lays four or five bluish white eggs.
Herons feed along the shore and are consequently more often seen than Bitterns. With the exception of the Green Heron and the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, which usually nest in isolated pairs, our species gather in colonies to nest. Several hundred pairs occupying a limited area in some wooded or bushy swamp to which, when undisturbed, they return year after year.
Herons build a rude platform nest of sticks, sometimes placing it in bushes, sometimes in the tallest trees, and at others on the ground or beds of reeds in marshes. The eggs are greenish blue in color and usually four in number. It is among those Herons, which in nesting time are adorned with delicate plumes or aigrettes, that the greatest ravages of the millinery hunter have been made. Attacking these birds when they have gathered on the nesting ground, they are not permitted to rear their young and the species is thus exterminated branch and root.
The voice of Herons is a harsh squawk varying in depth of tone with the size of the bird.
Flamingo, Spoonbill and Ibis
| 182. Flamingo (Phœnicopterus ruber). L. 45; from toe to bill, 60. Ads. Rosy red, lighter on back; primaries and secondaries black. Yng. Smaller, grayish brown; lighter below. Notes. A honk resembling that of a Canada Goose. Range.—Atlantic coasts of tropical and subtropical America; resident (breeding?) in southwestern Florida (Monroe county); casual west to Texas, north to South Carolina. 183. Roseate Spoonbill (Ajaia ajaja). L. 32. Ads. Head and throat bare; sides of breast and end of tail rusty buff; lesser wing-coverts, upper and under tail-coverts carmine. Yng. Head feathered, buff and carmine replaced by pink. Range.—Tropical and subtropical America; north to Gulf States. 185. Scarlet Ibis (Guara rubra). L. 24. Ads. Scarlet: tips of primaries black. Yng. Grayish brown, lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts white; underparts dull white. Range.—"Florida, Louisiana and Texas, southward to the West Indies and northern South America. No record of its recent occurrence in the United States." (A. O. U.) |
Ibises