The Florida chickens are coming!

If those ARE Ibis, that bill is colored red-orangish..not yellowish at all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_White_Ibis

"The diet consists primarily of small aquatic prey such as insects and small fishes. Depending on the habitat and the prey abundance, the White Ibis will adjust its diet although studies have found crayfish to be its preferred source of food in most regions. The White Ibis is a tactile, non-visual forager whose main foraging behaviour is probing its beak into the water to feel for and to capture its prey."

Here's a great bird identifying website for FL birds:

http://www.nsis.org/bird/sp/wb-ibis.html

Ragman- I do believe that the White Ibis' bills turn a dark red orange during mating season.

I have heard of the "Florida Chickens", (also known by another not so nice name) which referred to the Cattle Egrets.
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Cattle_Egret/id

I looked on that linked page but not seeing anything like the white bird in JC boys pics with orange-red downturned bill. Also the birds in the link there have a big comb sticking up on top.

I'm pretty certain these are white Ibis. They also have black tips on their wings.


[Edit: Oops. I just noticed your link and reference the cattle Egret about being 'Florida chickens' is about a whole different subject. Pls ignore my correction.]

White Ibis DO have a bit of black on the tips of their wings. I see those boids all the time in my neighborhood. Ditto cattle egrets and wood storks.

For purposes of attendant confusion, I'll give you a white ibex picture -



Kidding of course. When we were riffing about Ibis and Isis, I remembered having a necklace with a rampant ibex in silver dangling from a chain. That necklace hurt (the horns), so I eventually put it in the goodwill box even though it was a beautiful thing. So, I looked up ibex, and they aren't white, just this drawing of a primitive pictograph (ancestral.com).

Back to Ibises. Or Ibi.
Or cattle egrets, or parrots.

Now to plant a seed, then there's Ilex (holly) that is neither white nor a flying bird but is not a homonym.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilex

Yeh. I recognized ilex back in LA, but I never spec'd it (it's so un-Los Angeles like, the area being a semi arid desert, not to mention the LA basin itself didn't have native trees at all). But up in the north of CA, I learned they are thought of as pesky reseeders. Pretty though. Bringing things full circle, I take it birds like them....

We welcome the ibis. They help aerate the soil.

I also get these cranes in my front yard, and they are not afraid of me at all. Don't care for them, they eat the lizards and the lizards eat the bugs.

And that's the way of it..

(there was a play about that)

Anyway, they're beautiful.

They are! I've heard they can be pretty mean and you don't want to get pecked by one. When I came home I cut they grass, they were not even afraid of the lawnmower!

I believe those are snowy egrets. However, there also are protected cranes (Sandhill) in So. FL.

Natter, natter - snowy egrets have black beaks, and these birds look taller to me - can't quite tell by the photos.

It's not a crane.
Here's an Eastern Great Egret:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Great_Egret

However, for a different look, here is the Snowy Egret:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Egret

Those are Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets are much smaller, about the size of egrets.They have black beaks, and yellow feet ("golden slippers")

http://sdakotabirds.com/species/photos/snowy_egret_2.jpg

I often see Sand Hill Cranes. They are HUGE birds. The cutest thing is to watch the way the parents care for the chicks. One parent leads the pack, the chicks are in the middle of the line,followed by the other parent.

http://www.birdsasart.com/231/cranes%20with%20chick.jpg

Gotchya! Covered that correction with my last post.

Furthermore:
"Measuring 83–103 cm (33–41 in) in length and weighing 0.7–1.2 kg (1.5–2.6 lb), the Eastern Great Egret is a large heron with all-white plumage. Its bill is yellow in the breeding season and black at other times, and its long legs are red or black. The colours of the bare parts change during the breeding season."

I finally saw a Sandhill Crane on a golf course connecting to my friend's backyard. The mommy crane did that very thing (blocked road traffic) while they crossed every single chick.

I immediately thought of a smaller emu the way the body was shaped at the rear.

I wasn't sure what kind of birds they were, just look like large cranes, but my neighboy who has lived in Florida for 27 years said the same thing, Great Egrets. These birds sure are not afraid of anything, but I sure hope they don't fly in the backyard, one of my dogs is 90lbs and he doesn't like other animals in his yard.

I should have written, "about the size of cattle egrets"!