> White-faced Ibis. But I was surprised to see
>them away from a marsh, where I saw them last month for the first time.
>Cattle Egrets were in the next field, also picking at the ground, and I
>would have expected to see these two species together instead of with the
>blackbirds and crows.

When I lived in the Sacramento area, white-faced ibis were regular late
summer visitors to the ag fields, usually to recently cut alfalfa fields.
They would often be alone (i.e. just ibis), but would just as often be
sharing the field with any combination of the following: crows, blackbirds,
gulls, curlews, egrets (great, snowy and cattle), herons, Swainson's hawks,
and even killdeer. No pattern that I could discern, as to which birds were
where at any time. Crickets were the food source, the few times I was able
to identify it; the fields full of birds were also full of crickets. Great
birds, those ibis. I never tired of seeing them.

Rob Saecker
Olympia