Spoonbill daydreams

As a kid (like most kids) I was fascinating by all sorts of exotic and unusual animals. I felt a special kinship(?) to several including the wide-eyed loris (I had a poster), the flightless kiwi bird and the aardvark.

The kiwi bird curiosity sparked a strong and still unrequited desire to visit New Zealand. I even made a poster project about the land and customs there over summer break when I was about 8 years old complete with magazine clippings about the Maori culture and kiwi fruit cultivation (I had nerdy tendencies from a young age...) Anyway, I was never able to actually see any of those animals that so inspired my curiosities and so they lived quietly all together in the pages of my animal encyclopedia and National Geographic Magazine. And as the years past they were forgotten there...
Until now!
My childhood fascination with nature's creativity has been rediscovered right here in the Tampa Bay with the fantastically odd Rosetta Spoonbill (see photo) This bird is at once beautiful and strikingly odd with it's bright pink feathers, bald white head and its namesake spoon-shaped bill. I am mesmerized watching them at dusk swing their bills back and forth underwater spooning through the mud and sea grass.... I'm a kid again with a new favorite animal! All these years living in Florida and I had never seen one because they only live in a few corners of the state. Now I see one at least a few times a week in a pond right by our apartment and even in drainage ditches digging away right along side the woodstorks (also quite odd and beautiful) and the egrets, herons, Ibises, etc that make Florida a bird-watcher's paradise.
Simple pleasures....



P.S. Check out that smile!
P.P.S. Photos thanks to Wikipedia, Duke Univ Lemur Center and Andy's Light Table for the Rosetta(on Flikr)