Evening Spoonbill Flight

As many of you know I am always excited by the arrival of roseate spoonbills to our marsh area. The spoonies are not normally a bird we see here, but for the past few years we have been lucky around this time to get a visit by one or more of these big pink goofy birds. Sunday night this one youngster showed up in the marsh along with a group of wood storks which is typical as the spoonbills generally hang around with the woodies. Monday night I went back again to search for this spoonie and did not see it with the wood storks and I suspected it was out in the salt marsh feeding and could potentially fly in soon to join his companions. After a while the spoonbill did indeed come flying in just as I hoped.. but unfortunately it flew in toward the setting sun making the bird severely upper back and side lit and the lighting less than ideal. In the first photo you can see spoonie has a great egret buddy in the background.

The current update is that our young spoonbill picked up a friend last night as a second, brighter pink and older individual came in to join the relatively pale colored youngster. So now we have two and the hope is that more will arrive in the coming weeks! 

Spoonbill Evening Flight

Spoonbill Evening Flight 02

50 thoughts on “Evening Spoonbill Flight”

    • There really are sort of exotica aren’t they?!
      Other then a rare isolated individual that might appear for one day the spoonbills were not really seen in our area until 2009 when a group of 11 arrived and stayed for the entire summer and into the fall. None of us are sure why this is but we are happy they like our marsh and continue to return. 🙂

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      • Thanks for the link…. didn’t know you had it setup to do a gallery by bird ID…. ALL of those shots are simply marvelous, but you might notice the one I ‘liked’ best? Your pictures are a joy to view….. the one where Mr A makes an appearance right next to the spoonie was interesting, humorous and amazing… all at the same time. 😀

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    • Everyone it seems that sees one instantly becomes a fan, they literally stop traffic at times. We are thrilled they are back and even better, three more came in last night. I went to check this morning and all five are in the area, and yes I feel compelled to head out later this evening in hopes of getting some close photo ops. I got some flights this morning which was nice.
      I’ll send them your way after we have worn out a few memory cards. 🙂

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    • Well good news Paula! We had three more show up last night and now have five! I went this morning and saw them so they are still here. I plan to head over again this evening and hope to get some close photo ops!

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