Crested Ibis ibises on display in the foreign Crested Ibis enclosure at Tama Zoo enter their breeding season from early spring to summer, and a wide variety of chicks can be seen during this time. This time, we will introduce them in three parts, room by room. Part 1 features three species: Scarlet Ibis, Straw-necked Ibis, and Black-faced Spoonbill.


Layout plan of the enclosure for foreign Crested Ibis ibises

Scarlet Ibis

Visitors sometimes mistake Scarlet Ibis for a flamingo, but it's actually Crested Ibis characterized by its red plumage. During the breeding season, its red color becomes even more vibrant. On the other hand, the chicks have dark wings and whitish bodies that make them difficult for predators to spot, so even after fledging, they look like a completely different species of bird from the adults for a while. We also keep Straw-Straw-necked Ibis in the same enclosure, and the gray feathers that cover the neck and entire body of the young Scarlet Ibis are very similar.


Scarlet Ibis chick in its nest.
(Taken in October 2022)
Currently, we have young birds and juveniles born last year. They still have some gray feathers mixed in with their red feathers, so we can compare the color changes at each stage of their growth until around July of next year, when the young birds' feathers change from gray to vermilion.


From left to Straw-necked Ibis Ibis, and a juvenile, a young, and an adult Scarlet Ibis
(Photo taken on August 12, 2023)

Straw-necked Ibis

Straw-necked Ibis builds its nest by arranging the nesting materials itself on high perches. This season, in particular, two pairs nested on either side of each other, and at first, one pair was incubating eggs so close together that it seemed as if the male and female were sitting in different nests. In Australia, their main habitat in the wild, they breed in close proximity to other species of the same Black-feaded Ibis, such as the Australian Black-feaded Ibis and other Straw-necked Ibis, to the point where their nests become connected, and they sometimes nest so close together that their bodies almost bump into each other.

Initially, the birds incubated their eggs calmly, but once a total of three chicks hatched and began to grow in the two nests, the parents of the adjacent nests began pecking at each other, as if to protect their chicks from intruders. Surprisingly, once the chicks started to walk around, the parents began going back and forth between the nests, creating a peculiar group where four adult birds raised three chicks.


Around this time, the three chicks were freely moving between the two nests.
(Photo taken on July 12, 2023)

Black-faced Spoonbill that lived with us

This year, in June and July, there was one chick of a different species on the ground in the same cage. It was a Black-faced Black-faced Spoonbill that had been raised artificially. After it had grown to a certain size through artificial rearing, it was placed with other birds to learn how to interact with other birds, how to practice flapping its wings, and how to take food from the water and bathe, so that it could be safely integrated into the flock.

It was the only one with a pure white body, and it would cry loudly when people approached, making it a noticeable presence to animal keeper. In early July, it was successfully reunited with a flock of Black-faced Spoonbill in a non-public facility within the park.


Young black-faced Black-faced Spoonbill do not have black faces.
(Photo taken on June 14, 2023)
[Murayama, Wildlife Conservatio Center General Affairs Department]

◎Related News
・ Crested Ibis ibis and its relatives are on a massive migration! (April 11, 2014)
・ Sending Black-faced Spoonbill to Taipei: The Arrival and Breeding of the "Taipei" Zoo (January 11, 2019)
・ Crested Ibis ibis enclosure is bustling with activity due to a breeding boom. (July 12, 2019)
・ Black-faced Spoonbill are nesting in groups! (April 24, 2020)
・ Crested Ibis enclosure, preparing for breeding (May 22, 2020)
・ Death of the longest-lived Black-faced Spoonbill (February 3, 2023)
・ New initiatives to promote wildlife conservation (May 19, 2023)

(September 15, 2023)