Tag Archives: white-faced

Two White-Faced Ibises

February 9, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two white-faced ibises interacting in a San Joaquin Valley wetland pond

The white-faced ibises have intrigued me since before I knew what they were — in fact, I suppose I could say that I photographed them before I realized that they existed. Some years back, on my very first more or less accidental exposure to bird photography, I found myself “out there” on an early morning, with no more clue about what was going on than “someone told me I should go here and see the birds.”(That someone was a colleague where I taught.) I barely knew a goose from a swan, at least when they were flying quickly overhead, but I was amazed by the number and variety of birds that morning. I photographed like a madman, not really knowing at all what I was photographing. Later on, back home and looking at files, I recall finding a series of photographs of a line of birds overhead that had oddly long and curving beaks. I wondered what they were. It turns out they were ibises.

Ibises are not always the most common specimens. In addition to their unusual beaks, they have another particular visual characteristic. In many situations you would regard them as dark and fairly drab-looking birds. Photographing them in flight is often difficult, partly because they frequently just end up looking black against any lighter background. But catch them in the right light and the texture, patterns, and colors of their feathers begin to appear. On this morning I happened upon a group of ibises, perhaps a couple dozen, in shallow water. I stopped and watched quietly and was able to photograph a variety of behaviors, including this interaction between two of the birds.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White Faced Ibises, Clouds and Sky

May 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white-faced ibises is silhouetted against early spring evening sky above the San Joaquin Valley

I have what almost amounts to a tradition of making a weeklong visit to Death Valley near the end of March and beginning of April, that time of year when this desert landscape oscillates between winter and summer conditions and when the flowers bloom.. After a week or so in that austere landscape I am usually quite ready to see green and a greater density of living things. I’m also ready to get home! On a typical final day of the trip I do a bit of photography in the morning and then leave the park well before noon and start the long drive home. During the last few years I have made it my practice to leave early enough that I can just make it to one of my favorite San Joaquin Valley bird locations before the sun sets.

It has been a series of drought years in California and this was the worst one so far. When I drove do Death Valley things were still just as dry as we would expect in such a year. But while I was in the park a series of winter storms swept across the state—finally! I saw some rain and snow in DEVA, but by the time I got to the Central Valley is was clear from the puddles and ponds that a real storm had come through. I drove on up highway 99 and turned west toward my destination and found fields that were actually green. And on arriving at the wildlife refuge I was greeted by the smell of damp air and plants and the sounds of birds. What a contrast to Death Valley! Close to dusk we found a large flock of dark-colored birds in the shallow water nearby, and a closer inspection showed them to be white-faced ibises, settling in where the now departed geese would have distracted us from such quiet birds a few weeks or months earlier. As the evening wore on, large groups flew in, circled, and then descended to join the flock… including this group that passed in front of delicate dusk clouds and blue hour sky.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White-faced Ibis

January 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A white-faced ibis feeding in a shallow pond, California Central Valley

As a relative newbie to serious bird photograph, I recall my first “discovery” of the white-faced ibis. On an early visit to a California Central Valley wildlife refuge I had been astonished by the huge numbers of birds passing by overhead, and frankly I made a lot of photographs without any idea of what I was capturing. (I still don’t always know for sure – in November I thought I had photographed Ross’s geese, only to be surprised to find that a closer inspection of the photos revealed them to be snow geese.) I recall one morning out near the levee of a major Sacramento Valley river when I saw a beautiful group of birds approaching in dawn light and I managed to get a very nice photograph of “some birds” overhead – and later a friend remarked, “Those are tundra swans!” I’d never even heard of tundra swans before, much less looked for them.

So my first ibis photographs were accidents. I recall photographing a very impressive wedge of black birds flying overhead a few years ago, and then discovering as I worked on the files in post that the birds had surprising (to me!) long and curved bills. I had no idea what this meant, but I was intrigued. I eventually asked a friend who suggested that they might be white-faced ibises. This, like quite a few bird names, confused me, since I had never seen such a bird with a white face. It turns out that I had seen them… but the “white-faced” stage is, as I found out just last week, a seasonal thing! In late November of this year I returned to one of my bird photography haunts and found a very large number of these ibises in one area of the refuge I visited. And not only were there many of them, but they were rather close to my position – so I ended up with a nice basic set of photographs of this particular kind of bird. This specimen was feeding in grasses in shallow water, and as it poked around looking for something to eat it would regularly immerse its beak almost up to its head. I like several things about this particular shot – the red eye is clearly visible, and the interesting feather coloration on this one is interesting. (It can range from black to quite colorful.)

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast, Photographs: Wildlife

Two Gulls, Ocean and Horizon

July 20, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two sea gulls glide along the top of coastal bluffs above the Pacific Ocean north of Santa Cruz, California.

Since I’ve related the basic story previously – more than once – I’ll keep it short this time. Since I live within an hour or less of the California coast, I head over that way frequently to photograph. Among my favorite subjects are the pelicans that travel up and down (but mostly, for some inexplicable reason up) the coast, riding the updrafts along the tops of coastal bluffs. I had some free time on this day, so I headed over with photographing the birds as one of my possible goals.

When I got to this familiar spot, there were no pelicans. (Eventually a few did fly past, but this was not a good day for pelicans.) Before moving on to other subjects I thought I’d at least stay here a while and practice the skills involved in photographing these birds in flight since even though there were no pelicans, there were plenty of other obliging birds. Most of the time it is difficult to get two gulls in the frame once they get close and start to fly past, but these two hung close enough together to be in the same frame, and their low trajectory placed them right in front of the deep blue water, with the fog-softened horizon near the top of the frame.

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Tag Archives: white-faced

Two White-Faced Ibises

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White-faced Ibis

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.