The Awe of the Elusive Roseate Spoonbill
For almost 31 years, I’ve enjoyed the waterfront view from my home. I live in Florida, but live on the gulf or the bay, but I covet my view of tiny Lake Disston in front of my home. I remember the large picture window from the first home we lived in on this same lot. When we moved into the 1400-square-foot Mid-Century Modern in 1994, we struggled to find window treatments that wouldn’t obscure the view but provided enough privacy in the evenings. Rick and I settled on navy blue Levelor accordion shades that, with a little tug, we could push up to reveal a large front lawn, Augusta brick roads, and our little lake.
But for vacations, and a rare sick day, I’ve walked around that lake twice a day for almost 29 years. Owning at least two dogs throughout most of our years here, pushing young Jordan and Samuel in strollers, pulling them in wagons, then running behind them, hand on the bike seat as they learned to balance while pedaling, I’ve logged many miles around our little lake.
I also like to walk. I don’t meditate, but it’s a form of meditation, a clearing of my head. Walking helped me formulate the chapters for my book. I listen to audiobooks when I walk. During Covid, I listened to the Facebook livestream of St. Pauls’ Sunday mass, said by Monsignor Gibbons or Father Josh. I tried in vain to be a runner a few times. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was one of the kids that convinced the nuns in eighth grade to let us walk the mandatory one-mile run required to pass physical education.
That doesn’t mean I’m not competitive. I track my miles each day, comparing notes with my brother, who walks his two miles in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Rick and I enjoy guilt-free vacations because we log about 15,000 steps a day. Still, I’m gentler on myself now than when I was undergoing chemotherapy treatments. That was the last time I tried to be a runner. I wanted desperately to prove to everyone that I wasn’t dying. I was off to a good start, until I realized that adrenaline and steroids will only get you so far. Not the best way to launch a running career, so I returned to daily walks around the neighborhood and our Lake Disston.
Ours is the little lake. The larger one, with a large nesting tree in the middle, is Lake Pasadena, 5 blocks west. When we meet new neighbors, we ask, “Do you live near the big lake or the little lake?
We neighbors are protective of our oasis in the city. Rife with ducks, Canadian geese in the summer (how does that happen?), ibis, wood storks, turtles, and fish, we call to one another when there’s an otter sighting. True to Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, paving paradise means we see displaced coyotes. It’s our neighborhood, and they’re just passing through, looking for a new home.
If our lake were a color, you might say it was greenish brown, save for the bright white ibises. The arrival of a bright pink roseate spoonbill, like the one that’s been hanging around for a few weeks, is a celebration. That’s when the morning walkers stop, stare, and capture the beauty on their smart phones.
I usually see ‘her” while walking our black Labrador, Christie. I say “her,” but don’t know whether it’s male or female. Pink is not for girls only. I end up taking at least ten photos while holding my phone in my right hand while gripping Christie’s leash in the other. She’s usually yanking me toward a delicacy left behind by the ducks and geese, which means it takes a few minutes to get a decent photo. I usually text the best photo to my daughter who lives in a different time zone and is not yet awake. I like to think it makes her smile when she wakes up.
Roseate is one of six types of spoonbills. They are the only ones found in the Americas, specifically in coastal Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. They were almost extinct, until they repopulated themselves in the early 20th century. The other 5 spoonbills are found in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia, thousands of miles from far away from our Lake Disston. How lucky are we when one of these pink, spoon-billed beauties arrive on our shallow shores?
Like follicly challenged humans, they lose their feathers from the top of their head as they get older. Their spoon-shaped bill takes 39 days to form. Their pink color comes from the foods they eat, such as crustaceans and other aquatic invertebrates that contain pigments called carotenoids that help turn their feathers pink.
It could be the same bird every day, but still, I took a photo. I want to share this beauty with my world. I want others to see what I get to see. Not everyone has that benefit, which is why I usually post the photo to my Instagram story so that my friends and followers who don’t live in Florida can enjoy this beauty, too.
It may sound silly, but sharing the beauty that I see makes me happy. We all find wonder in different spaces. Surprises like the arrival of the elusive roseate spoonbill summoned me to pause. I think about how we choose to see the world, and how that impacts how we live.
Last night, Rick and I watched All the Light We Cannot See. The 4-part Netflix series is based on the book by Anthony Doerr. I’d heard the title, but hadn’t read the book, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Rick and I both enjoy historical fiction. We became so obsessed with Outlander that much of our 2022 trip to Scotland was comprised of visits to sites from the series.
Doerr’s story centers around the 1944 Nazi invasion of Saint-Malo in in Brittany, France. Although they don’t know each other at first, main characters Marie Laure and Werner Pfennig share a common bond: the love of a radio show, forbidden under Nazi rule.
Marie is blind, and Werner is a Nazi soldier, recruited as a teen from a German orphanage. The Professor is the radio show host. He speaks of the light that is unseen when referencing the electromagnetic radio waves that are unseen. But in speaking in scientific terms, he is really referencing the ability to see even when we think there’s nothing beautiful to see.
Throughout the movie - and I now plan to read the book - there are references to light, the ability to truly see even when times are dark, and what that means to our lives.
“Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever,” says the professor on radio station 13:10.
Seeing a bird with a bright pink flume and bill shaped like a spoon, foraging for food right outside your front door, may mean nothing to you. I choose to view the arrival of this creature as a gift, a bright spot. For you, it may be something different that gives you pause and makes you whip out your cell phone and take photos to send to friends and family. Find that kind of awe. Be open to seeing what causes you to reflect and truly see the world, even if it’s only a few hundred feet in front of you. We all deserve to experience awe.