Majestic roseate spoonbills are Texas’ answer to pink flamingos
A large, long-necked pink bird with a bizarre beak perched on tall legs must be a flamingo, right?
Not in Texas. It’s more likely a roseate spoonbill, which resembles a flamingo.
Pink plumes are about the only thing the two birds have in common though. Roseate spoonbills have long, thick necks with beaks shaped like big flat spoons, hence their name. Flamingos have long, skinny necks held in an S-shape with bulky sickle-shaped beaks.
Wild American flamingos rarely show up along the Texas coast, and the few that have shown up probably came from the breeding population on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Escaped flamingos from aviaries don’t count as wild birds.
Roseate spoonbills reside throughout the year along coastal and inland waterways and are most common from spring to fall. March is the best time to see the birds with their ostentatious breeding plumage. They have been nicknamed “flame birds.”
Contrasting with their rosy-pink bodies are rouge tinctures on the inner
wings and rump, along with golden-yellow hues accenting their shoulders and tail. Their white necks extend to a black collar bordering bare-skinned, yellow-green heads.
Spoonbills stand about 2½-feet tall and fly on 4-foot wingspans with their necks extended straight out.
They feed in shallow, freshwater wetlands, brackish waters, saltwater bays and inlets, whirling their beaks in the water to stir up fish, snails, water beetles, shrimp and other marine organisms.
With their tactilesensitive beaks partially open, they swish beneath the water’s surface to detect prey and snap shut to strain the water, filtering in marine organisms and crushing the shells of crustaceans like shrimp. A diet of carotenoid-rich critters gives spoonbills spectacular reddish-pink plumage.
When you see the birds along the coast, you’ll want to grab your camera. Or use your iPhone for a selfie with spoonbills in the background. That would make a nice Easter post.
Also look for spoonbills this month at a stand of trees called a rookery in the middle of Clay Bottom Pond at Houston Audubon’s Smith Oaks Sanctuary in High Island. The birds nest communally with other handsomely plumed, long-legged wading birds, such as great and snowy egrets.
Watch as a male spoonbill courts a female. He woos her to a nesting site by bobbing his head and then seizing a nearby twig in his beak to rattle it like a castanet.
If the female accepts his proposal, the two of them will rub and slap their beaks together as though kissing, then press their bodies against each other if in an embrace. Email Gary Clark at texasbirder@comcast.net