(Please see picture gallery below – if you have any pix please send to sheilaelliot@yahoo.com)

April Bird of the Month – White Ibis 

From Ben Kolstad’s article in the April Kite: “

April’s bird of the month was known to early settlers of southwest Florida as “the Chokoloskee chicken” because of its size, abundance, and its habit of frequenting yards and neighborhoods—and presumably, like everything else in the culinary world, it tastes like chicken. A frequent visitor to Florida’s lawns and gardens,

Eudocimus albus uses its long decurved bill, bright red in breeding season, to search for tasty (and lawn-damaging) arthropod grubs to eat.

Sometimes confusing to new birders, young white ibis aren’t white—they’re brown! But they’re not brown ibis, or Glossy (next month’s BotM), just juvenile White Ibis.

Come to our April meeting to hear our own bird expert, Clive Pinnock, tell us more about these characteristic (and charismatic) south Florida birds.”

(Photographer’s please note that next month’s May 2014 Bird will be the Glossy Ibis)