2i6 Bird - Lore 



deserted them as soon as we entered the rookery. An umbrella blind was 

 placed in one of the larger mangrove bushes, but after hours of waiting, no 

 Spoonbills were seen. At sunset the birds of various species began to return 

 to the rookery for the night. Flock after flock of White Ibises, with bright 

 red feet and faces, came to roost in favorite trees. With much talking Louis- 

 iana Herons greeted birds that had evidently been absent during the day. 

 Turkey Vultures silently sailed in to perch in rows on the branches of a dead 

 tree, and, suddenly, six Spoonbills, with a resonant woof-woof-woof of beating 

 wings, lit in my foreground. One of them was within fifteen feet of me. As 

 it grew darker the birds became more numerous, pouring into the rookery 

 from every side, and as they settled for the night and disputed the possession 

 of some perch with their neighbors, there arose a veritable babel of voices. 



Their keen sight dimmed by the gloom, the birds were now less shy. A 

 Louisiana Heron sought what was doubtless his regularly frequented perch 

 within reach of my foot, others took adjoining limbs, and, as the crowning 

 event of the afternoon, a Spoonbill and two Snowy Egrets roosted in the 

 same tree with me. 



There were about a dozen Spoonbills' nests in this rookery, four or five 

 of which held fresh eggs. In one there were four, in the others, three eggs. 

 The nests were in the mangroves often near one another, and at an average 

 height of ten to twelve feet. They were made of larger sticks than those 

 used by the American Egrets which were nesting near them. As a rule the 

 sticks were rather loosely put together and the nests were far from care- 

 fully made. 



Spoonbills' eggs, like their habits and structure, indicate that they are 

 more nearly related to the Ibises than to the Herons. Instead of being blue 

 like those of Herons, they are white or pale greenish blue, more or less heavily 

 blotched with brown at the larger end, and with spots or specks scattered 

 over the remaining surface. Thus, they resemble the eggs of the White Ibis. 

 They measure about two and a half inches in length and one and three-quarters 

 in breadth. 



The eggs we found in Cuthbert Rookery on March 29 were freshly laid, 

 but we had reason to believe that the birds had been robbed and that this 

 was a second laying. Audubon says that the eggs are laid about the middle 

 of April, but there are specimens in the United States National Museum 

 which were secured on Marquesas Key, Florida, January 11, 1883. Un- 

 questionably, therefore, the birds begin to nest as early as January. Later 

 dates may be, as with the Cuthbert Rookery birds, second layings, or due 

 to the variation in nesting-time which sometimes occurs among birds breeding 

 in warmer climates, where the necessity for regularity is not so urgent as it 

 is further north where the warm season is shorter. 



On April 17, 1910, I found a colony of about 200 pairs of Roseate Spoon- 

 bills on Pajaro Island, in Tamiahua Lagoon, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, 



