This week the Ibis returned to Havensafe! While they make occasional appearances all year round, “Season” is the best time for the Ibis to stalk its favorite prey – the delicate and high-strung Dressage horse.
In most ways Florida is an ideal place to train your horse in the Winter. There is no snow to crash off of the roof, no frigid temperatures to turn your mild mannered gelding into a fire breathing dragon, no deer to bolt through your outdoor arena, and no Canadian geese to strike terror into your heart with their low altitude vociferous migrations. However, what you do have here is a wide range of totally different flora and fauna to help desensitize and or traumatize your horse. Oh yes, we have more to offer here than just the white birds!
Tough not everyone agrees with me, I adore the lizards. Like me, they are dysfunctional in temperatures below 75, becoming lethargic and even paralyzed by the cold. Their cold-blooded bodies must be defrosted on hot rocks or in warm patches of grass. I love finding them calmly sharing a pasture with my horse on a hot afternoon, both horse and Iguanas content to graze in the noon-day sun. I am, however, less enamored of them when they suddenly make a run for it while I am out trail riding, their legs describing irregular circles on the sides of their bodies in a shockingly inefficient running style. The horses are alway a little concerned when these generally slow moving creatures suddenly take flight dragging their incongruously long tails up a tree.
Lest you think that the animals have all the fun, the plants get in on the action as well. Palm fronds waving around in a brisk breeze sound like an approaching army rattling their death sabers, and when they unexpectedly fall to the ground from their second story heights they create quite a racket. After storms, they lie around in great menacing heaps the dry leaves rattling in the breeze, frightening the most intrepid trail horse.
But perhaps the most alarming menace to equine tranquility comes not from a lizard or a tree, but from the unassuming Ibis. These medium sized, nondescript white birds are the true terrors. Many a quiet morning turnout is ruined as a flock of these birds quietly settles in the grass next to the pasture. Your horse takes notice but is not immediately alarmed as the birds mill around pecking at invisible insects in the grass. It is what comes next that is the problem. In a seemingly pre-meditated move, the Ibis flock suddenly takes flight, swooping low over your previously calm horse their movements clearly conveying panic – the predator is coming, run for your life! Run until you loose at least two of your shoes, find yourself in a lather – actively trampling the person who comes to rescue you in your haste to get back to the safety of your stall. And the Ibis laugh. I am sure of it.
These cunning fowl know when they have a new victim and they make the most of it. A couple of years ago I was coming back from a hack when I saw the little avian devils at work. My friend Ashley had just arrived in Florida with her mare Somer. Ashley had planned to get on Somer for an easy stretchy ride, nothing too strenuous. However the Ibis had a different plan in mind. As Ashley stood atop the mounting block the Ibis industriously pecked the grass all around. They waited until Ashely had mounted and then one of them clearly gave the “go” signal. They took off in panicked flight swooping low around poor Somer who knew immediately that coming to Florida for the Winter had been a bad and dangerous idea. Somer lurched sideways trying to avoid the Ibis and still run from the predator from
which they were obviously fleeing, but the birds had more in store for her. One of them spotted a snake and thought that this was the right time to pick up a snack for later. The bird descended upon the snake and picked up the writhing body. Now much to Somer’s dismay, there was a predatory bird flying right at her with what was probably a dangerous and possibly venomous snake. The poor mare thought that the only reasonable course of action during such trying times was to rear and leap in the air.
My horse meanwhile, was quite accustomed to the shenanigans of the these crazy birds and kept making his placid progress along the path towards the arena. I was not sure if I should attempt to approach Ashley and her leaping panicked steed to see if my calmer horse could offer soothing vibes, or stay put to avoid adding fuel to the fire. Eventually, the scene concluded with the Ibis dropping the distressed snake and the flock swooping off to terrorize another horse at another barn, their work initiating a new horse to the Florida scene now complete.
As pre-meditated as their behavior seemed that day, it was hardly their first act of seemingly deliberate mischief. Several years ago, there was a horse at our barn who truly hated those birds. The mere sight of them would cause him to baulk and bolt, but they would never leave it at that. No matter what time he was ridden they appeared ring-side to persecute him. They bided their time, and as soon as he was focused on his work they would strike. Not satisfied to merely take off, they would fly under the cover and straight through the arena, fluttering right past this miserable horse.
While it is of course extremely unlikely that the Ibis plot against horses, the coincidence of their vexatious presence sometimes stretches the imagination. The flocking, fluttering, and sudden low altitude flight is definitely alarming, but I wonder if our horses have also heard the theory that birds are descended from dinosaurs. Perhaps deep down our large majestic equines still see themselves as small burrowing mammals, struggling for survival as they hide from the giant carnivorous jaws of T-Rex and the other forefathers of the Ibis.
