Is That A Flamingo?

Roseate spoonbill -  Platalea ajaja

 Is that a Flamingo you are taking pictures of? That is a question I hear on a regular basis every time I visit the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, Florida. What makes Ding Darling NWR such a great place is that it is a drive through wildlife park, and this allows many people to drive up and be very close to the many species of birds that are found in the refuge.  With Sanibel Island being a prime vacation spot, you have quite a few visitors to the refuge that might otherwise not be inclined to visit a wildlife refuge. With a polite smile and a suppressed laugh I say "No, those are Roseate Spoonbills". While many species of the birds have grown accustom to the human presence, Spoonbills are much more leery and tend to stay farther away. So I and many other photographers need to use some pretty big lenses on our cameras to bring them in close. This attracts attention and brings out the questions when they see the pink plumage. So for someone that is not familiar with birds, they assume the birds are Flamingos.

Spoonbill at Ding Darling NWR

 

Once you identify the birds as spoonbills, you can usually count on numerous followup questions. While I am at times amazed at some peoples total lack of knowledge, I do enjoy helping people out and giving them some useful information.  When you tell people that Flamingos are not really native to the U.S. they don't want to believe you. They just assume that since they have seen millions of the plastic ones in residential yards, they actually are native residents here.

Captive Caribbean Flamingos in a preserve

When you look at the birds plumage you can see how people can make the assumption that they are Flamingos. But that is where the similarity ends. One look at their overall body structure and beaks makes identification easy. In my recent trip Ding Darling NWR I spent five days there photographing birds. I was asked at least a dozen times. "Are those Flamingos?" While I was photographing birds one morning I was talking to one of the numerous volunteers who help assist people with information and show them birds through spotting scopes. I asked him how many times he is asked about the Flamingos. He laughed and said at least 10 times a day.

Caribbean Flamingo

Roseate Spoonbill

Both Species are beautiful birds in there own uniques way. Many species of birds look very similar, and many times it takes an expert to make an identification. But in this case, even I know the difference between a Spoonbill and a Flamingo.

Seen any Spoons?

There are many species of amazing birds to photograph when you head to South Florida. But the holy grail of bird photographers is the Roseate Spoonbill. There may be a group of photographers shooting various birds, but when the word spreads of some Spoonbills around, everyone picks up their tripod and heads to photograph the spoons. Most discussions almost always include where and how they photographed Spoons.

Roseate spoonbills are named for their pink plumage and their distinctive, long spoon-shaped bill. Of the six species of spoonbills, no other spoonbill is so brightly colored.

 

The roseate spoonbill's plumage is pink with red highlights and orange tail feathers. Like the flamingo, the roseate spoonbill owes much of its pink coloring to pigments imparted by crustaceans it eats. Adult male and female roseate spoonbills are quite similar in appearance, though males are somewhat larger with longer bills. The average adult is 26 to 31 inches tall, with a wingspan of about 50 inches across, and weighs about 3 pounds.

The distinctive spatulate shape of its bill sets the roseate spoonbill apart from other wading birds such as herons and egrets, which use swordlike beaks to stab their prey, and from flamingos, which use their beaks as scoops. Roseate spoonbills hunt by touch instead of sight, a crucial adaptation for a bird that feeds in muddy or vegetation-clogged waters.

To feed, spoonbills wade through water no deeper than knee level, with their bill immersed, mandibles slightly open, sweeping their bill in rapid arcs from side to side to create swirling currents like mini-whirlpools that pull up small prey from the muddy bottom. Sensitive touch receptors along the bill's length detect vibrations and signal the bill to close quickly on the prey swept inside the spoon. Papillae then help move the food back to the throat. This unusual and specialized feeding style is known as "head-swinging."

The roseate spoonbill is the only spoonbill species that lives in the Western Hemisphere and can be found on the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, and southern Florida, as well as in the tropics and in Central and South America. These birds thrive in marshes, tidal ponds, rivers, lagoons and mangrove swamps, where they can find the dense concentrations of prey they need in order to feed effectively. Those that live in the tropics usually don't migrate, but those that live in the southern United States will migrate in response to changing food availability and rainfall patterns.

Roseate spoonbills are social birds, spending much of their time with other spoonbills and water birds, and nesting in colonies alongside ibises, storks, cormorants, herons, and egrets. Spoonbills usually feed in groups, often near herons or other waders. Since spoonbills feed with their heads down, they rely on these vigilant neighbors to provide warning of danger -- otherwise, one of the spoonbills will often serve as sentry.
 

Roseate spoonbills were driven to the brink of extinction by hunters supplying the millinery trade in the late 19th century. The plumes of other wading birds such as snowy and great white egrets were more desirable for use in decorating ladies' hats than those of spoonbills, whose feathers tend to quickly lose their pink color. Even so, spoonbills wings were used as fans. And since spoonbills tend to nest in colonies with egrets and herons and would abandon their nests when disturbed, their population suffered severely as a result of plume hunters. Only a few dozen breeding pairs of roseate spoonbills remained in North American in the early 1900s. Spoonbills received legal protection from hunting in the 1940s and have responded well to extensive restoration efforts. Roseate Spoonbills have recovered from near extinction.

Although they are no longer listed as an endangered species, roseate spoonbills are extremely sensitive to environmental change, and can thus provide insight into the overall health of their habitat. Their populations decline when faced with the broad use of pesticides to control mosquitoes and the draining and pollution of their wetland habitats. Many national wildlife refuges such as J.N. "Ding" Darling NWR in Florida and Anahuac NWR in Texas provide protected habitat for these and other sensitive wading birds.