Ibis at Rookery Bay

White ibis along the Conservancy boardwalk at Rookery Bay

All adventures start with that one first step!

A Happy New Year to all my online friends!
happy painting and sketching,

~ Elizabeth

Early morning ibis

Early morning ibis, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Smith.

Early Morning Ibis

The other morning we saw a flock of ibis on our neighbor’s roof and in the nearby cabbage palm. I was able to get a photo as they flew off, and then later painted the image in watercolor on the back of an old Tyvek® envelope. I remember them as smoky gray silhouettes against a silvery-rosy-blue sky.

My bird book tells me that the brown and white birds I see are juveniles. I sketched a group of adult ibis a while back, and now I wonder if they are part of the same group. I think ibises are beautifully graceful both on land and in the sky, but their take-offs seem a bit gangly. I like this about them, too.

You can click on the image above to see it larger on my Flickr photostream.