The African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) is a species of ibis, a wading bird of the family Threskiornithidae. It is native to Africa and the Middle East. It is especially known for its role in the religion of the Ancient Egyptians, where it was linked to the god Thoth.
An adult individual is 68 cm (27 in) long with all-white body plumage apart from dark plumes on the rump. Wingspan is 112 to 124 cm (44 to 49 in) and body weight 1.35 to 1.5 kg (3.0 to 3.3 lb). Males are generally slightly larger than females.
The bald head and neck, thick curved bill and legs are black. The white wings show a black rear border in flight. The eyes are brown with a dark red orbital ring. Sexes are similar, but juveniles have dirty white plumage, a smaller bill and some feathering on the neck, greenish-brown scapulars and more black on the primary coverts.
This bird is usually silent, but occasionally makes some croaking noises, unlike its vocal relative, the hadada ibis.
The sacred ibis breeds in Sub-Saharan Africa and southeastern Iraq. A number of populations are migrant with the rains; some of the South African birds migrate 1,500 km as far north as Zambia, the African birds north of the equator migrate in the opposite direction. The Iraqi population usually migrates to southwestern Iran, but wandering vagrants have been seen as far south as Oman (rare, but regular) and as far north as the Caspian coasts of Kazakhstan and Russia (before 1945).
It was formerly found in Egypt, where it was commonly venerated and mummified as a votive offering to the god Thoth. For many centuries until the Roman period the main temples buried a few dozen of thousands of birds a year, and to sustain sufficient numbers for the demand for sacrifices by pilgrims from all over Egypt, dozens of ibis breeding farms (called ibiotropheia by Herodotus) were established, initially throughout Egypt, but later centralised around the main temples, each producing around a thousand mummies annually. Aristotle mentions in c. 350 BC that many sacred ibises are found all over Egypt. Strabo, writing around 20 AD, mentions large amounts of the birds in the streets of Alexandria, where he was living at the time; picking through the trash, attacking provisions, and defiling everything with their dung.[5] Pierre Belon notes the many ibises in Egypt during his travels there in the late 1540s (he thought they were an odd type of stork). Benoît de Maillet, in his Description de l’Egypte (1735) relates that at the turn of the 17th century, when the great caravans travelled yearly to Mecca, great clouds of ibises would follow them from Egypt for over a hundred leagues into the desert to feed on the dung left at the encampments. By 1850, however, the species had disappeared from Egypt both as a breeding and migrant population, with the last, albeit questionable, sighting in 1864.
The species did not breed in southern Africa before the beginning of the 20th century, but it has benefited from irrigation, dams, and commercial agricultural practices such as dung heaps, carrion and refuse tips. It began to breed in the early 20th century, and in the 1970s the first colonies of ibises were recorded in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Its population for example expanded 2-3-fold during the period between 1972-1995 in Orange Free State. It is now found throughout southern Africa. The species is a common resident in most parts of South Africa. Local numbers are swollen in summer by individuals migrating southwards from the equator.
Elsewhere in Africa it occurs throughout the continent south of the Sahara, but it is largely absent in the deserts of southwestern Africa (i.e. the Namib, the Karoo, the Kalahari) and probably the rainforests of the Congo. In west Africa it is fairly uncommon across the Sahel, except for the major floodplain systems. It can commonly found breeding along the Niger, in the Inner Niger Delta of Mali, the Logone of C.A.R., Lac Fitri in Chad, the Saloum Delta of Senegal, and other localities in relatively small numbers such as in The Gambia. It is common across eastern Africa and southern Africa. Large numbers can be found in the Sudd swamps and Lake Kundi in Sudan in the dry season. It is fairly widespread along the upper Nile River, and is quite common around Mogadishu, Somalia. In Tanzania there are a number of sites with 500 to 1,000+ birds, totalling some 20,000 birds.
In France the African sacred ibises have become established along its Atlantic coast following the feral breeding of birds which were the offspring of a large free-flying population originating from the Branféré Zoological Gardens in southern Brittany. The first successful breeding was in 1993 at two sites, the Golfe du Morbihan and Lac de Grand-Lieu, 25 km (16 mi) and 70 km (43 mi) respectively from Branféré. By 2005 the Atlantic French breeding population was estimated at 1,100 pairs and winter censuses led to an estimated total population of up to 3,000 birds. A separate population originated from a zoo at Sigean on the Mediterranean coast of France and by 2005 the colony at the Etang de Bages-et Sigean was estimated at 250 pairs. A cull was begun and by 2011 the population had fallen to 560–600 pairs. By January 2017 the eradication programme had lowered the number of birds in roosts in western France to 300–500 birds and the Lac de Grand-Lieu was the only regular breeding site in the region; as the programme has progressed the birds have become warier and the reduced numbers mean the effort and cost per bird has increased and complete eradication may never be achieved. The population near Sigean was eradicated by killing and capturing the birds with only a few remaining in the Camargue.
This species is not considered established in mainland Spain. The Barcelona Zoo kept a small free-flying population which bred in the zoo and at least once in 1974 in the surrounding city park. Between 1983 and 1985 they had increased to 18 birds, but these subsequently declined to 4–6 pairs in the 1990s and the birds were permanently caged by the end of the 1990s (the zoo still has some). In 2001 the remaining birds in the surroundings were culled, thus ending the occurrence of the species in the ‘wild’ in the area. However, in the early 2000s vagrants from most probably France were recorded in northern Catalonia, and sporadic observations throughout the year have been recorded since then along the Mediterranean and Cantabrian coasts. There were a total of about twenty approved records of sightings between 1994 and 2004. As of 2009, birds entering Spain from France are shot.
The population in Italy may have been introduced from the zoo Le Cornelle which has kept a free-flying group since the early 1980s, or possibly from Brittany, but this is unclear. The first pair was seen breeding in the nearby heronry at Oldenico, in Lame del Sesia Regional Park in Novara, NW Italy, in 1989. By 1998 there was a colony of 9 pairs and 48 birds there; by 2000 there were 24–26 pairs, and by 2003 there were 25–30 breeding pairs. A second colony appeared in 2004 at another nearby heronry at Casalbeltrame. These birds would mostly feed in the rice fields in the area, but would also migrate elsewhere during the summer, with the population at the roosts increasing in the winter. In 2008, the number of breeding ibis was estimated at 80–100 pairs, and at least 300 birds. That same year, six individuals, consisting of three pairs, were observed roosting at a heronry in Casaleggio. By 2009 they were said to be one of the most characteristic animals of the rice-growing area of Novara and Vercellese. In 2010 the species was reported attempting to breed in the Po Delta, northeast Italy. By 2014 reports of individuals and small flocks were recorded in various areas from the Po Valley down to Tuscany. Outside the Piedmont Region, cases of possible nesting are reported in Emilia-Romagna, Veneto and Lombardy. As of 2017 there do not seem to be coordinated control efforts in Italy.
In the Netherlands, sacred ibises were introduced from three sources; primarily from the free-flying flock at the aviary zoo Avifauna, and another group of 11 birds which escaped from a private bird trader in Weert when a tree fell on their enclosure sometime between 1998 and 2000 which would all return to their cage each winter. Furthermore, in 2000 a group of sacred ibises escaped from a zoo near Munster, some of which apparently crossed the border into Overijssel, as the colours of their rings closely matched. The free-flying Avifauna flock numbered 12 in 2001, 30 in 2003, and an estimated maximum of 41 birds escaped the zoo eventually. There had been sightings throughout the country for many years, but in 2002 successful breeding was first reported in a nature reserve some 40 km from Avifauna. By 2007 the feral population in the Netherlands had increased to 15 pairs breeding at three locations, including in a tree just outside the zoo. Pairs would regularly move from the zoo to the nature reserve in the summer and vice versa. The next year, in 2008, the tree outside the zoo was cut down, and free-flying birds were recaptured, clipped and caged. 2008/2009 was also a cold winter and many birds died. By 2009 37 birds had been recaptured and by 2010 there were no more birds breeding in the wild. The birds in Weert were halved in number after the 2008–2009 winter and had disappeared somewhere between 2011 and 2015. As of 2016 a few birds survive, some still attempting to breed in Overijssel, and handful sightings of less than three reported. Possible vagrants from France have also been noted (by their rings) after 2010.
For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_sacred_ibis
Posted by George Vittman on 2020-01-25 17:46:35
Tagged: , Bouches-du-Rhône , France , birds , ibis , flight , tree , branch , sacret ibis , wildlife photography , jav61 photography , jav61
