Scarlet ibises are not born red. Chicks start out grey and brown. The famous red colour comes from what they eat - lots of tiny shrimp and crabs that contain a natural orange-red pigment. The more shrimp the ibis eats, the redder its feathers become. In other words, they are exactly what they eat.
They feed by wading slowly through the shallow water of marshes and mudflats, swinging their long curved beaks from side to side. The beak feels for small creatures hiding in the mud - shrimp, crabs, water insects and tiny fish.
Scarlet ibises live in big flocks of hundreds or even thousands. At sunset they fly together to roost in the same group of trees, often near the coast. When the whole flock takes off at once, the sky fills with red - one of the most amazing sights in the natural world.
The scarlet ibis is one of the national birds of Venezuela's neighbour Trinidad and Tobago, but huge numbers also live in Venezuela's wetlands. Anywhere there is shallow water, mangrove, mud and shrimp, the ibises are usually nearby.