The Hadada Ibises especially like wooded streams. They are common residents throughout Africa in suitable habitats including swamps, marshes, flooded areas, edges of lakes, pastures and rivers with treed banks. Sacred Ibises are common in East Africa and are found throughout Africa south of the Sahara. They frequent marshes, swamps, riverbanks, pastures and plowed fields. They were once common along the Nile River, but have been absent from Egypt for over a hundred years.
Ibises usually roost in temporary communal roosts located near feeding grounds.
They may share the roosting areas with herons, cormorants, storks or other ibis species. Hadada Ibises are noisy birds with a familiar loud yelping cry. Sacred Ibises are generally silent but sometimes voice a harsh croak. These birds feed by touch rather than sight. They probe the mud and search under water for slow moving animals such as fish, insects, crustaceans and amphibians.