Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇸🇷 Suriname

Scarlet Ibis

One of the reddest birds in the world, nesting in Suriname's coastal mangroves

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The scarlet ibis is one of the most brilliantly coloured birds on Earth. Every feather on its body — except the very tips of its wings — is a deep, burning red that glows like a flame in the sunlight. Thousands of them nest in Suriname's coastal mangrove swamps, and when a flock takes flight the sky turns red.

Tell me more

The scarlet ibis gets its red colour from the food it eats. It uses its long curved beak to probe into mud and shallow water for small crabs, shrimps and beetles — and all these creatures contain a natural red pigment. The more the ibis eats, the redder it becomes. Young ibises start out grey or brown and turn redder as they grow.

Scarlet ibises nest together in huge colonies in the mangrove forests along Suriname's coast. These mangrove forests are important in their own right — the tangled roots hold the coastline together and provide nurseries for young fish. So protecting ibises means protecting the mangroves, which protects the fish, which helps the fishermen. Everything is connected.

At dusk, watching thousands of scarlet ibises fly in to roost in the trees is one of the great wildlife spectacles of South America. The birds come in wave after wave, turning the trees red as they land. Suriname has several protected areas along the coast where visitors can watch this happen by boat.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01The scarlet ibis's colour comes from its diet. Can you think of any other living things whose colour comes from what they eat? (Hint: think about flamingos.)
02Protecting one species — the ibis — also protects the mangroves and the fish. Can you think of another example where protecting one thing helps many others?
03Imagine watching thousands of red birds filling the sky at sunset. How would you describe that to someone who had never seen it?

Try this

Classroom activity

Do the 'You are what you eat' experiment with art. Draw two scarlet ibises side by side — make one grey (a young bird that hasn't eaten enough red food yet) and one bright scarlet (an adult). Then write a 'food diary' for the adult ibis showing what it ate each day of the week to become so red.

Scarlet Ibis

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Discussion prompts

Classroom activity

Other things that make Suriname special

Want your class to meet Suriname?