Species: Bubulcus ibis

H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - BREEDS: in Western Hemisphere locally from California, southern Idaho, Colorado, North Dakota, southern Saskatchewan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, southern Ontario, northern Ohio, and Maine south, primarily in coastal lowlands, through Middle America and West Indies to South America (northern Chile, northern Argentina, southeastern Brazil). Breeding range is expanding with deforestation in Central America. NORTHERN WINTER: throughout much of breeding range, north to the southern U.S. In the U.S., most abundant in winter in Florida, around the Salton Sea (California), on the coastal plains of southern Texas, and around the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana (Root 1988). Introduced in Hawaii. Old World species that has spread from populations introduced in South America (NGS 1983); some have concluded that the species colonized South America on its own.