Roseate Spoonbills at Allen's Fresh

They don’t belong here.

They arrived unannounced, six of them all at once.  Definitely from somewhere south.  And so flamboyant. 

Roseate Spoonbills.  Almost unheard of this far north on the Atlantic flyway.  The Pelecaniformes- long-legged waders like herons, ibises, egrets- made an extended stay in Allen’s Fresh Natural Area, a feeder creek on the lower Potomac just south of the 301 bridge between Maryland and Virginia. Allen’s Fresh is a hotspot for ecological diversity. 21 miles of freshwater from Zekiah Swamp drain into the Wicomico here. The interchange of salinities into the Wicomico and further out into the Potomac creates a perfect spawning ground for a number of anadromous bay fish and migratory waterfowl.

But not Roseate Spoonbills.  The first reports seemed questionable- unbelievable even.  But they were there, and it looked like they were planning on staying for awhile.  The buzz around new visitors to the region brought plenty of attention to the creek.  The small roadside pull-offs which allowed access to the shoreline are usually pretty empty mid-summer, except for occasional catfishing or channa chasers.  All walks of life came to Allen’s Fresh to catch a glimpse of the spoonbills. On some days the shoulder of the road was packed like the entrance to a National Park. 

I’d seen spoonbills in winter rookeries in the Everglades before.  But seeing them here in the watershed was different.  There, I felt like the visitor.  Here, it was them.  When you watch them in wholly different environments, the gaze is different.  It’s not sightseeing, but studying.  Witnessing and wondering. 

This was a rare migratory achievement. An act of endurance, of instinct, and an act of survival itself through such a journey.  They seemed perfectly content too.  The forage must have been palatable enough to keep them well fed, as they showed no signs of moving on as the weeks went by.  Other Pelecaniformes- mainly herons, but occasional egrets are found in the area- were curiously distant.  In southern rookeries, I’d seen them much more intermixed. 

They don’t belong here, the herons seemed to be thinking.