<\/p>\n
Roseate spoonbill parents interact with their chicks on a nest in Florida.<\/p>\n
Jean Hall\/Audubon Florida<\/p>\n
Courtesy to the Herald<\/p>\n
Deep in the Everglades, through the knee-high mud and up, up, up in the trees, tucked into nests made of twigs, are the squawking, flapping and distinctly pink offspring of one of Florida\u2019s most iconic birds: the roseate spoonbill.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see a bunch of pink, fuzzy balls. They made this very cute clacking noise,\u201d said Shauna Sayers, a wading bird research specialist for Audubon Florida. And then there\u2019s the smell. \u201cThey\u2019re stinky little guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Humans have sought out these nests for nearly a century in Florida. First, to plunder them and pluck the prized feathers to adorn the hats of fashionable ladies, and then, to learn more about the birds. Audubon has been tracking them since the 1930s.<\/p>\n
These decades of research have pointed out a curious pattern for where the spoonbills make their nests \u2014 an inland shift. The culprit, the science suggests, may be sea level rise.<\/p>\n
A young roseate spoonbill perches in the branches of a tree in the Everglades. Shauna Sayers\/Audubon Florida Courtesy to the Miami Herald <\/p>\n
Rising waters threaten the birds\u2019 ability to feed their babies, said Bryant Dossman, director and principal scientist of the Audubon Everglades Research Station. They drag their distinctive, spoon-shaped bills through the water waiting to feel something vibrate nearby before they snap it up.<\/p>\n
Spoonbills have called the Everglades home for centuries, so they\u2019ve grown to depend on its wet and dry seasons. In the dry season, when they have their babies, water levels drop. Fish and other tiny critters get grouped together in the remaining shallow puddles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is if there\u2019s a lot of water, too much water, their ability to encounter small fish is diminished,\u201d Dossman said. \u201cThey\u2019re designed for the scenario where there\u2019s a high concentration of fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers have figured out spoonbills prefer to snag their fish from puddles five inches deep, or less. The problem is that sea levels have risen about five inches in the Everglades since 2000.<\/p>\n
A roseate spoonbill perches in a tree in the Everglades. Shauna Sayers\/Audubon Florida Courtesy to the Miami Herald <\/p>\n
Audubon researchers warned in a study on the topic that<\/a> \u201c80-90% of the historic foraging area may no longer support foraging activity for Roseate Spoonbills nesting in Florida Bay.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s squishing the spoonbills to new corners of Florida Bay, both to inland spots of the Everglades that used to be dry and have gone soggy and to some of the tiny mangrove islands flecking the bay. In the past, those islands had little pools of water in the center that were too shallow to support fish. Now, they\u2019re deep enough to serve as a proper spoonbill buffet in breeding season.<\/p>\n New homes for a South Florida native<\/p>\n But sea level rise isn\u2019t the only factor steering spoonbills around the state.<\/p>\n Their population in Florida Bay has waxed and waned along with Everglades restoration efforts. Too much or too little water flowing south from Lake Okeechobee can wreak havoc on the historic nesting grounds for the long-legged birds.<\/p>\n In the last 30 years, the number of spoonbill nests in Florida Bay has been on a slow decline, Sayers said. Most recent years, researchers counted around 200 nests \u2014 a steep drop from the 1,250 or so high Audubon reported in 1979. Even two or three decades ago, scientists were spotting between 500 and 900 nests a season.<\/p>\n But there was good news this year. Sayers and other researchers counted 244 nests this breeding season, the first time the count has been higher than 200 since the 2020 nesting season.<\/p>\n And as nests have disappeared in Florida Bay, Dossman said they\u2019ve started to see spoonbills flourish in new homes. Spoonbills have been spotted nesting in Savannah, Georgia, and North Carolina. Wayward pink birds have even been sighted as far away as Maryland and Minnesota.<\/p>\n \u201cEssentially, their range is expanding northward at a dramatic clip. We see them declining here. We see them increasing in Tampa Bay,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile not all related to sea level rise and warming temperatures, it\u2019s just a part of the equation. It\u2019s what\u2019s driving a lot of that expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n This movement is easy to spot these days because scientists have attached bands \u2014 some with GPS trackers \u2014 onto about 3,000 spoonbills. When researchers or birders spot a spoonbill sporting the plastic anklet, that data helps inform state and federal policy to protect the birds.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why Dossman doesn\u2019t see the low number of nests in Florida Bay as the end-all, be-all for spoonbills.<\/p>\n \u201cThe story of spoonbills in Florida Bay,\u201d he said, \u201cis one of perseverance and adaptation.\u201d<\/p>\n Spot a banded spoonbill? Report it<\/a> on Audubon\u2019s form.<\/p>\n Jerry Lorenz trains Audubon researchers Kaycee Doherty and Shauna Sayers on best practices for banding a roseate spoonbill chick in the winter of 2025. Shauna Sayers\/Audubon Florida Courtesy to the Miami Herald <\/p>\n
Roseate Spoonbill with leg band. Shauna Sayers\/Audubon Florida Courtesy to the Miami Herald <\/p>\n
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