Roseate Spoonbills at Lemmon Lake Trinity River Dallas Texas

Roseate Spoonbills along Trinity River in Dallas Texas at Lemmon Lake at Joppa Preserve in the Great Trinity Forest Dallas Texas. Somewhat rare to see coastal birds such as the Roseate Spoonbill this far north in Texas. Exceptionally rare to see the Roseate Spoonbill inside the city limits of Dallas, within a large urban area. Hunted to near extinction in the early 1900s, the Roseate Spoonbill population dwindled to only 100 breeding pairs in Texas by the 1930s. Their striking pink feathers were popular on women's hats, and hunters from all over the United States competed for spoonbill plumes. In the early 1900s, roseate spoonbills began to recolonize areas along the Gulf Coast and slowly increase in number. Today, threats to roseate spoonbill populations come as a result of habitat loss. Even by 1979, their numbers had only rebounded to 2500 birds in the wild. Currently their numbers have rebounded substantially enough to be removed from Federal protection as an Endangered and Threatened species.

As an older lake, over 120 years old, Lemmon Lake once served as a private fishing and hunting lake to well heeled Dallasites at the turn of the last century. Over time, the lake as slowly started to silt in creating an ideal shallow water environment for wading birds, alligators and snakes. Sightings of venomous snakes and alligators are common here.

The Roseate Spoonbill, Ajaja ajaja, (sometimes placed in the larger genus Platalea as Platalea ajaja) is a gregarious wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family, Threskiornithidae. It is a resident breeder in South America mostly east of the Andes, and in coastal regions of the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Spoonbills consume a varied diet of small fish, amphibians, aquatic invertebrates, and some plant material. They feed in the early morning and evening hours by wading through shallow water with their bills partially submerged. As a Roseate Spoonbill walks it swings its head back and forth in a sideways motion. When the bird feels a prey item it snaps its bill closed, pulls the prey out of the water, and swallows it.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• roseate spoonbill
• Ajaja ajaja
• Great Trinity Forest
• trinity river
• joppa
• wading birds
• heron
• wood stork
• ibis
• dallas texas
• snakes
• alligator
• tpwd
• endangered species
• rare
• audubon
• oak cliff