Birders may be tickled pink to find roseate spoonbills along the South Carolina coast, but the increasing relocations of these glamorous birds raises concerns about the impacts of habitat loss and rising global temperatures.
What’s happening?
Naturalists are noticing a growing number of roseate spoonbills taking up year-round residency in the South Carolina Lowcountry, including in marshes around Hilton Head, as local outlet The Island Packet reported in March.
The distinctive species — which sports Barbie-pink feathers, a glaring red eye, and a huge spoonlike bill — “looks like it came straight out of a Dr. Seuss book,” according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology .
Sightings of these birds are not unheard of in South Carolina and farther north. The wandering waders are known to travel far from traditional nesting areas in Florida Bay and parts of Louisiana and Texas (others nest and migrate farther south). What’s increasing is the population that’s lingering in the Lowcountry — pushed north from south Florida by the effects of warming temperatures and loss of habitat, as the Packet detailed…