(Due to a scheduling snafu, this header was originally published for a few hours three weeks ago. Here it is again.)

Our bird this week was inspired by an item I saw in the news. The crested ibis, our subject for the week, has been successfully reintroduced to the Noto Peninsula in Honshu, Japan and Sado island, off its coast. Once found throughout the region, they are for now limited to the two locations in Japan and Yangxian county in Shaanxi province, China. Widely considered to be extinct throughout their range in the 1970s and 1980s due to habitat destruction, hunting and pesticide use, they were rediscovered in China in 1981. Their rediscovery led to a captive breeding and reintroduction program in China, which has helped researchers in other countries where the ibis used to be found. As of 2002, there were 130 crested ibis colonies in China. In Japan, meanwhile, crested ibises were extinct on the Honshu mainland as of the 1970, and the last ibises native to Sado Island died in 2003. China donated artificially fertilized eggs to Japan in 1999, and a conservation center on Sado island began successfully breeding the birds. 10 birds were released into the wild on the island in 2008, and there are now around 500 present. Eight were released earlier this month in Noto, with ten more slated to join them soon. South Korea has also accepted gifts of these birds from China, specifically in 2008 and 2013. A conservation center in South Korea has successfully bred more than 360 birds, and dozens have been released into the wild. These birds were first recorded breeding in the wild in 2021, and have been spotted since.

The crested ibis has plumage that varies with seasons. In the winter it is white with pink on the wings and tail, in the summer it is gray on top and and across its back, with pink on the bottom. Its long bill curves downward and has a red tip. This bird likes temperate montane forests and hills, and prefers to live near water. It can be found on riverbanks, near streams, rice paddies and marshes. At the low point of the population, when only two were known to exist in the wild, studies showed that the birds had tended to live in remote areas. This was because farmers who lived in those areas couldn’t afford to use pesticides which damaged the bird’s food supply. Since such pesticides have been banned the newly reestablished populations have shown a tendency to live closer to people and rice paddies where they can now safely forage.

The crested ibis’s diet is varied, and consists of things you might find in/near water if you were a gangly bird looking for a snack. It eats fish, frogs, crabs, shrimp and other crustaceans, snails, and something called hemipteran insects. I looked these up because they didn’t sound familiar. They are in fact an order of insects referred to as “true bugs.” Their common feature is their unique mouthparts, which are designed to pierce a surface and suck out the contents while simultaneously injecting their saliva into their prey. This saliva serves to begin digestion of the food even before it is sucked up into the bug. Hemiptera includes things like cicadas, beg bugs, and aphids. The order includes over 80,000 species, so you will excuse me if I keep this overview criminally brief, but I did want to share further details about a new thing I learned. The crested ibis forages for these and other sources of food in shallow water, but can also be found in muddy areas on land, where it quietly and deliberately stalks while keeping its eyes out for prey.

Back when there were more of these birds, groups which bred in the northeast end of their range, covering parts of Russian, North Korea japan and china would migrate south in the autumn. Southern Chinese and Japanese populations would not migrate, and were residents. The current populations do not migrate.

Crested ibises are solitary or hang out in small groups of their own kind, they do not associate with other birds. They build ramshackle nests high in tall trees near water, and both parents will incubate the eggs for around 30 days. Both parents will also feed the chicks until they are able to fly, which doesn’t happen until 45-50 days after they hatch. Once the chicks can fly, they will spend several months hanging around their parents until they move on. The crested ibis is rated “endangered” by the IUCN on account of its very low population and continued habitat degradation. It has a very small range, but there appears to be considerable effort being put into reestablishing populations of these striking birds by several governments in their previous range.

Have a good weekend, everyone.  Be kind to yourselves and others.

Links: https://tinyurl.com/5dy26pa7, https://tinyurl.com/5a4rvdhx, https://ebird.org/species/creibi1, https://tinyurl.com/yexaz9vz, https://tinyurl.com/48zewxva, https://tinyurl.com/cex27y98, https://tinyurl.com/3tyu9sej,  https://tinyurl.com/59xba3as