Driving forty-five-minutes to find a single bird might seem like a fool's errand, especially when your target is residing in a vast one hundred-acre park. Of course when the site is the city of Gilbert's Riparian Preserve at the Water Ranch you're guaranteed to see an impressive variety of other avian wildlife, especially migratory water fowl. So the trip is always worth your while. But it was the roseate spoonbill that was in my sights last week, and I'm happy to say I found him.
The spoonbill is a coastal bird, common in the United States along the Gulf of Mexico in Texas and Florida. The juvenile that appeared in the middle of land-locked Arizona may have flown in from a closer location, somewhere along the Sea of Cortez or the western coast of Mexico where the bird is also a resident. Vagrants are not unusual in many species of birds. After all, they have the ability to fly, so they can often easily travel great distances if successful in finding food and the climate is agreeable.
Gilbert's very own spoonbill was first spotted late last summer. Its arduous journey inland and so far north may have been aided by monsoon storms that pull tropical moisture into the state. In addition, an especially successful breeding season in a roseate spoonbill colony could have supplied a surplus of youths, many of whom have an innate drive to seek out new and distant fertile grounds. For the moment, this lone juvenile seems to have found an ideal habitat in the Riparian Preserve, where seven tree-lined ponds collect the city's treated wastewater and refill the area's natural aquifer.
It wasn't difficult for me to locate the spoonbill. Except for a blinking, wary eye, he was motionless, dozing in a tree at Pond #2, on a wooded island viewable from the southbound walking trail that leads to Ponds #3 and #5. But even asleep, he stood out with his pink coloration, similar to that of a flamingo. And just like with that flamboyant bird, this pigmentation comes from a diet rich in crustaceans.
The roseate spoonbill is the only spoonbill in the Americas and is one of six species in this genus named for its long, spatulate bill, adapted to scoop up food as it forages along muddy shores. Alas, as long as my napping subject tucked himself in a cozy bundle, I wasn't able to observe his namesake beak.
Of course I didn't want to disturb the spoonbill so was quite fortunate when a noisy gaggle of passing Canadian geese did the dirty work for me. As a result I was able to capture some shots of his unique bill as he languidly surveyed the ruckus from his safe perch.
Far on the other side of Phoenix's vast metropolitan sprawl, at least three other juvenile roseate spoonbills have been spotted at the city of Glendale's own riparian water works. With additional sylvan and reed-filled borders along the habitat's ponds, maybe the spoonbill is evolving from only a vagrant in the area to a part-time resident.
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| Juvenile roseate spoonbill at Gilbert's Riparian Preserve at the Water Ranch. |
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| Dozing roseate spoonbill in Gilbert. |
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| Roseate spoonbill in Gilbert. |
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| Roseate spoonbill in Gilbert. |
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