The Story
I made this photo of a Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja) at Hato Barley in Tauramena, Casanare, Colombia. There is no obvious difference between males and females. It gets its pink color from its diet, from the carotenoid pigment canthaxanthin. Adults have a bare greenish head and a white neck, back and breast. In flight it alternates groups of stiff, shallow wingbeats with glides. Plume hunting in the 18th and 19th centuries almost drove it to extinction. Casanare lies in Colombia’s Orinoquía region, the eastern plains, at an average of about 350 meters. Tauramena lies in southwestern Casanare.
I used a Pentax K-1 with a 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6 lens for this one, at 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. IUCN lists the Roseate Spoonbill as Least Concern, with a stable population.
©2019 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