STORKS AND WOOD IBISES: WOOD IBIS 
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winter: Face naked, rest of head and neck thinly covered with coarse hairlike feathers 
of grayish brown; body dull white. 
Range. —Breeds in southeastern United States, Central and South America south 
to Patagonia. After the breeding season it moves north to southern California, 
Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, southern Illinois, and southeastern Indiana (casual 
stragglers have wandered north to Wyoming, Montana, and eastward to New Bruns¬ 
wick); winters occasionally as far north as Florida and South Carolina. 
State Records. —The only record of the Wood Ibis in New Mexico is that of 
Henry, who wrote: “A few seen along the Rio Grande during the months of Sep¬ 
tember and October. More common on the sloughs near El Paso del Norte, where I 
saw a moderately large flock in August f 54” (IS55, p. 316). Those seen in New 
Mexico were near Fort Thorn. The Wood Ibis is a tropical species, and the colonies 
breeding nearest to New Mexico are probably those at the mouth of the Rio Grande. 
As this species, in common with many of the herons, has the habit of northward 
migration in the fall, these wanderers, principally young-of-the-year, are the ones 
that would be noted in New Mexico.—W. W. Cooke. 
General Habits. —The heavy bill, which proves this unusual bird a 
stork, makes the name of Wood Ibis, by which it is commonly known, an 
unfortunate misnomer. The adaptation of its long peculiar bill to its 
feeding habits, as shown in Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, is striking. 
When wading for food it holds the decurved tip open two or three inches 
in contact with the mud. “In this position it walks slowly about, 
raking the bottom with first one foot, then the other, as each is moved 
forward to make a step, and just before its weight is thrown upon it. 
Many of the animals on which the bird feeds are startled from their 
coverts by this raking, and in their fright take shelter within the open 
bill of their enemy.” Besides crawfish, crabs, frogs, turtles, minnows, 
and snakes, it is said to eat young alligators, which require a strong bill 
to hold them. While on the ground it conceals its white plumage among 
the reeds but in the open is conspicuous enough, perching on the tops of 
tall trees and sometimes, gathering in large flocks, circling high in the 
sky like the Turkey Vulture. 
In Uruguay, Doctor Wetmore found the Wood Ibis ranging in bands 
of from ten to twenty, “often accompanied by a Roseate Spoonbill or 
two” (1926b, p. 61). 
Additional Literature.—Bent, A. C., U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 135, 57-64,1926. 
IBISES: Family Threskiomithidae 
Subfamily Threskiomithinae 
The Ibises have long, almost cylindrical bills, blunt at tip, grooved 
and curved throughout; space in front of the eye, bare; legs short for 
the order, front toes webbed at base. The sexes are alike, the young 
and adults different. They inhabit marshes, swampy rivers, and lake 
shores in warm countries, feeding on crustaceans, frogs, etc. 
