North American Birds

These birds live in the Columbus Zoo's North American aviary. I visited April 20.

I blew the focus, but how could I not publish Jolene? She's a snow goose.

killdeer

Eastern bluebird

Cedar waxwing. Mmmm.

White-faced ibis, complete with a white face (breeding plumage). These guys (there are two) are pretty photogenic, and I've gotten good shots of them over the last few years.

Wood thrush

Black-capped chickadee. Or a Carolina chickadee.

Long Legs

For tagging pictures, I classify birds sometimes by science and sometimes by something I make up. Cardinals and other songbirds are passerines, which is common shorthand for the order Passeriformes. Pigeons and doves are in the order Columbiformes. I call birds "waders" if they wade in water or look like or are related to birds that wade, even if they stick to land. The great majority of birds in this category that I have photographed have long legs. There are many small shorebirds, but I don't have pictures of them, so I haven't separated them from long-legged birds.

I didn't plan my tags much beyond bird / insect / mammal / reptile. As I have accumulated thousands of photos I've added categories and subcategories so that I can find, for example, long-legged birds.

saddle-billed stork (Cincinnati Zoo)

white-faced ibis (Columbus Zoo)

white-faced ibis (Columbus zoo)

Caribbean flamingo (Columbus Zoo)

hamerkop (Columbus Zoo)

sunbittern (Cincinnati Zoo)

killdeer (Columbus Zoo)

sacred ibis (Columbus Zoo)

Snowy

I went to the Columbus Zoo twice in January, right after snows.

Snow goose. I was surprised to learn that some aren't white.

cedar waxwings

white-faced ibis

White faced ibis. My best shot of the two trips.

Reindeer. The Columbus Zoo has three, all female.

Anana and Aurora. I don't know which is which, but the one on the left was already asleep when I arrived. The other moseyed over, dug herself a comfy spot, and closed her eyes.

Red panda. This could be Kora, the mom; Kora spends a lot of time in a tree. I found that a camera's autofocus might not work well when it's snowing.

Red panda. This one was doing laps around the enclosure.

 

White-faced ibis

The Columbus Zoo has two white-faced ibises in its North American aviary. The birds were perhaps first-years in 2018. All About Birds says, "In good light, note the metallic green and bronze wings."

May 7, 2018

July 25, 2018 - They've got brown heads and necks with a little red.

August 7, 2018 - Here's the whole bird. The red on the back is actually the inside leading edge of the wing.

April 3, 2019 - The next spring, the red is gone. (This picture is of the golden plover at the back. I thought it might be interesting to have the two ibises out-of-focus in front. They're on the roof their winter home in the aviary.)

May 15, 2019 - Six weeks later, the ibises' necks and breasts are red, and we see why they're called white-faced. (I don't know what the ceremony is. If it's related to mating, nothing will come of it because both are male.)

July 1, 2019 - The colors are still strong after another six weeks.

November 4, 2019 - Back to brown.

June 11, 2020 - Looking fancy again.

As far as I know, feathers don't change color, so there must be two molts per year: One to turn red, presumably for breeding season, and another to return to brown. Or maybe the red just fades.

Two brown ibises

In general, ibises are medium-sized wading birds. The African hadada ibis is a brown bird, but it has a jaunty red stripe on its upper mandible.

hadada ibis (Columbus Zoo)

Hmm. Not entirely brown.

The North American white-faced ibis is also brown. (You know where this is going, right?)

white-faced ibis (Columbus Zoo, May 7, 2018)

I think the Zoo's two white-faced ibises hatched in 2018.

July 25, 2018

August 7, 2018

Where's the white face? It's part of the bird's breeding plumage. I hope to see breeding plumage in person later this year.