The Story
I photographed this juvenile Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) at the Nowen Bridge in Puerto Concordia, Meta, Colombia, in February 2021. Young Scarlet Ibises start out a mix of gray, brown and white, and the scarlet color, produced by a diet heavy in red crustaceans, comes in gradually over about two years, starting on the back. In the Llanos of Colombia and Venezuela, where its range overlaps with the American White Ibis, the two have been found to interbreed. It is one of the two national birds of Trinidad and Tobago.
I used a Canon R5 with the RF 800mm f/11 plus the RF 1.4x extender for this one, at 1/500 sec, f/16, ISO 1600. IUCN lists the Scarlet Ibis as Least Concern with a decreasing population.
©2021 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Scarlet Ibis (Eudocimus ruber) belongs to the family Threskiornithidae (Ibises and Spoonbills) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List