The Story
I photographed this Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) at Hacienda La Cabaña, near Tauramena, Casanare, Colombia, in January 2020. Its pink color comes from canthaxanthin in its diet, the same pigment that colors the American Flamingo. Unlike herons, spoonbills fly with their necks stretched out. Adults have a bare greenish head, and males and females look alike. It feeds in shallow water by swinging its spoon-shaped bill from side to side as it walks, often in groups. IUCN lists it as Least Concern, with a stable population.
I used a Pentax K-1 with the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 for this one, at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100. Plume hunting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries nearly drove it to extinction, but it is not considered threatened today.
©2020 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) belongs to the family Threskiornithidae (Ibises and Spoonbills) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025), with the population trend listed as stable. Source: IUCN Red List
