A trip to Cedar Key seems incomplete without seeing any roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja). It was getting late in the afternoon when I started walking around town this weekend so I wasn’t sure what I’d see, but there were several spoonies resting on an offshore spit of land and a couple flying over the water within the same area. These beautiful pink birds have always intrigued me. Those pink feathers, colored by carotenoids in the shrimp they eat (similar to flamingos), are a striking contrast to the nearly bald heads and flat beaks. It seems to be a study in both modern beauty and primative features. It’s also always interesting to watch them sweep those flat beaks through the water sifting edible things from inedible things. This was one of the two birds that were flying over the water. The sun was beginning to set behind the trees in the background and it created some lovely light for photos of the bird.