Flamingo (february 12)

Roseate Spoonbill

(Platalea ajaja)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: : Animalia
Phylum: : Chordata
Class: : Aves
Order: : Ciconiiformes
Family: : Threskiornithidae
Genus: : Platalea
Species: : Ajaja ajaja

listen to songs of this species

Photos by Juan Aguero (juanKa)
Flamingo, Everglades National Park
Camera 40D,Lens Canon EF 300mm L IS

Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja)

A bizarre wading bird of the southern coasts, the Roseate Spoonbill uses its odd bill to strain small food items out of the water. Its bright pink coloring leads many Florida tourists to think they have seen a flamingo.(read more)

Diet
The roseate spoonbill spends a lot of its time in shallow water feeding. It sweeps its open bill from side to side in the water to sift up food like small fish, shrimp, mollusks, snails and insects. It has touch receptors in its bill that help it feel its prey. Like the flamingo, the roseate spoonbill's pink color comes from the food it eats. Some of the crustaceans it eats feed on algae that give the spoonbill's feathers their rosy pink color.(read more)

Though plume hunting has ceased, spoonbills are still vulnerable today to habitat loss and alteration. In Florida Bay, freshwater inflows from the Everglades adversely affect the salinities of coastal wetlands and the population of fish and other prey. The roseate spoonbill is listed as a Species of Special Concern.(read more)

Photos by Juan Aguero (juanKa)
Flamingo, Everglades National Park
Cameras Canon 40D, 20D
Lens Canon EF 100-400mm L IS

EF 300mm L IS

Anhinga Trail (Safari,Feb 9)

Photo by Juan Aguero (juanKa)
Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park
Camera Canon 40D, Lens Canon EF 300m L IS

Egretta tricolor tricolored heron;Louisiana heron (Also: tricolored heron)

Food Habits:
Tricolored herons usually stand in shallow water to find and catch prey. The bird has many different types of prey-catching behaviors. Hancock and Kushlan call their most frequent form of prey catching behavior a "walk-quickly-running-open wing tactile sequence" (Hancock & Kushlan, 1984). Egretta tricolor's prey catching behavior is varied depending on the habitat in which they live, but almost all their food is found in shallow waters. Unlike other heron species which change their diet depending on changing environmental conditions, the tricolored heron changes "...their foraging habitats and feeding strategies in order to continue to encounter preferred prey items" (Hill, 2001).

Ninety percent of the diet of Egretta tricolor is composed of fish. It also eats "...amphibians, crustaceans, gastropods, leeches, worms, spiders, and insects..." (Hancock & Elliott, 1978). (Hancock and Elliott, 1978; Hancock and Kushlan, 1984; Hill, 2001)

LaLonde, N. 2003. "Egretta tricolor" (On-line), Animal Diversity Web. Accessed February 07, 2009 at http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Egretta_tricolor.html.

Photos by Juan Aguero (juanKa)
Anhinga Trail, Everglades National Park
Camera Canon 40D, Lens 300mm L IS