Hi lwb1033,
As that does not appear to be an expected behavior, here are a few items that may help:
1) Try disabling the Reduce White Point feature and re-enabling to see if that change triggers a response on the search bar you reference.
2) Test this behavior in Dark mode to see if it can be reproduced in both environments or is isolated just to Light mode.
3) If you have installed third-party keyboards, check to see if this occurs only in a particular keyboard. Add or change keyboards on iPhone explains how to change the keyboard you're using:
"Switch to another keyboard
- While typing text, touch and hold
or
. - Tap the name of the keyboard you want to switch to.
You can also tap
or
to switch from one keyboard to another. Continue tapping to access other enabled keyboards."
You can find a list of all installed keyboards by going to Settings, then General, then Keyboard, and finally Keyboards.
Regards.