White-Faced Ibis. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A white-faced ibis feeds in a San Joaquin Valley winter pond
A few years ago I knew almost nothing about the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley. The first time I photographed them I was simply amazed by their sheer number and the variety of shapes, behaviors, and calls — but I could barely tell one from another. Birds flew over and I photographed them, often not knowing what I was capturing with my camera.
Sometimes, when I looked at the photographs later, I would discover some interesting feature of the birds that I hadn’t paid attention to or couldn’t see at the time. I realized later than my first encounter with the ibis was such a photograph – I had photographed a line of birds overhead, their shapes silhouetted against the sky, and when I looked at the photograph closely I was surprised to find the characteristic long, curved beaks. I was fascinated by the shapes, but I had no idea what they were. Obviously, they were white-faced ibises, like the bird in this photograph. The ibis seems perfectly adapted to hunting in the shallow waters of these wetlands, with their long legs and long, curved beaks. If you look closely you may be able to tell that this one has just picked up something from the water in its beak. The feathers of the ibis are a marvel. At first the bird can look dull and almost black, but put it in the right light and the back feathers turn out to contain a huge variety of colors, from pinks to yellows to greens an browns and black.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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