It is named for its loud three to four note calls uttered in flight especially in the mornings and evenings when they fly out or return to their roost trees.

Although not as dependent on water as some ibises, they are found near wetlands and often live in close proximity to humans, foraging in cultivated land and gardens.

A medium-sized ibis with stout legs and a typical down-curved bill, the wing coverts are iridescent with a green or purple sheen.

Populations to the north of the Zambezi river and towards the eastern parts of Africa including Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan and Ethiopia are larger and longer billed and designated as B. h. nilotica (Neumann, 1909) while to the west from Senegal to Congo and Kenya the darker brown and more brightly glossed populations are designated as B. h. brevirostris (Reichenow, 1907).

[11] The bird has blackish legs and a large grey-to-black bill but during the breeding season it has a red culmen on the basal half of the upper mandible.

The hadada ibis occurs throughout Sub-Saharan Africa in open grasslands, savanna and wetlands, as well as urban parks, school fields, green corridors and large gardens.

This bird occurs in Sudan, Burundi, Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda, Tanzania, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Gambia, Kenya, Somalia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa.

The distribution range of the hadada has increased in southern Africa by nearly two and a half times in the 20th century following the introduction of trees in parts that were treeless.

They are particularly welcomed on bowling and golf greens because they are assiduous in extracting larvae of moths and beetles that feed on the roots of the grass.

Like other ibis species, including spoonbills, and like some other probing feeders such as sanderling and kiwi, hadada have sensory pits around the tips of their bills.

In their foraging for unseen prey, such as shallow subterranean larvae, the pits enable them to locate feeding insects and earthworms.

[25] The Bantu people of Uganda have an origin story where a man and wife starved themselves during a drought while letting their children eat whatever little they had.