Roseate Spoonbill

About the Roseate Spoonbill

The Roseate Spoonbill is one of the most distinctive wading birds in the Americas - bright pink with carmine shoulders, a white neck, a bare greenish head, and a long gray bill that flattens into a spoon at the tip. The pink comes from pigments in the crustaceans it eats.

Spoonbills feed by touch, wading slowly while sweeping the partly open bill side to side through shallow water; when the sensitive tip contacts a shrimp, small fish, or aquatic insect, the bill snaps shut. They nest colonially in coastal shrubs and low trees, often alongside herons, egrets, and ibis.

On the Texas coast the Roseate Spoonbill is present year-round in marshes, lagoons, and bay flats, and post-breeding wanderers reach inland reservoirs in late summer.