Florida’s Gulf Coast is home to numerous bird species, and the southwestern tip of the state is no exception.

An excursion by boat through the mangroves at the edge of the everglades reveals many species of long-necked wading birds.

For example:

The Roseate Spoonbill, a year-round resident that, like the pink flamingo, takes its color from small crustaceans in its diet.

The great white egret, an elegant shoreline bird that often appears as a solitary, ghostly figure in the marsh.

And whatever the hell this thing is.

The final specimen in today’s brief collection of wading birds may be the Lesser Dancing Nincompoop, a migratory fowl often found in non-linear disarray.

The Lesser Dancing Nincompoop spends most of its time in the American Southern Northern Eastern Midwest, but regularly ranges as far north as Chicago, Illinois, as far west as Nevada, and as far south as southwestern Florida.

Interestingly, though it is a non-native species introduced from the southern New England coastal corridor, it has not proven invasive. It has adapted reasonably well to life in the interior, though ornithologists suspect that its migratory habits reflect a yearning for salt water, open skies, and critical dietary elements like really good bagels and legit New York-style pizza.

Ornithologists also suspect that, like the Spoonbill and the flamingo, its color may be dietary in origin, and that it derives its pasty hue from the exoskeleton of one of its preferred prey species, the Lesser North American Baguette (a distant relative of the European variety endemic to France).

PS: These shots were all taken on a really cool 2-hour Everglades Eco-Tours boat tour this morning. We had a great time and learned a lot 🙂