26 On the trail of vanishing birds 



just over one year of age, 174 were in the first postnuptial plumage, 

 or just under 20 months of age; 20 were in the second postnuptial 

 plumage, or just under 30 months of age, and only two showed the 

 full adult feathers. 



A careful check on their arrival and departure dates on that 

 coast, the observation of migrating birds that headed out from 

 Cape Sable to Key Vaca and apparently off beyond Sombrero 

 Light toward the Cay Sal Bank and Cuba, as well as new firsthand 

 information on Cuban spoonbill colonies, convinced us that these 

 summer flocks represented a postbreeding season dispersal from 

 Cuba. We still believe this to be the case, but it would be both 

 interesting and of considerable value to place colored bands on 

 the legs of nestling spoonbills in several Cuban colonies and see 

 how many of them turned up on the Florida coast. Perhaps this 

 can be done someday. 



During the war years of 1942-1945 many of us, the writer in- 

 cluded, were almost completely out of touch with such pleasant 

 subjects as the love life of the roseate spoonbill. We learned later 

 that a few of the flocks had been among the innocent bystanders 

 which suffered quite needless casualties. Most of the losses were 

 on the Texas coast, where local training fields sent out aircraft 

 manned by eager and trigger-happy youngsters who fired on any 

 object that seemed to them a safe target. Others dropped practice 

 bombs which exploded a 10-gauge shotgun shell when they hit. 

 Unfortunately, spoonbill flocks in open, uninhabited areas made 

 tempting targets, and during those years their numbers were 

 definitely reduced on the Texas Gulf Coast. In Florida we were 

 luckier, and when I returned to the Keys in 1946, after an absence 

 of four years, I learned that our Florida Bay spoonbill flock had 

 actually shown an increase. This was the year before Everglades 

 National Park was dedicated, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service had held the fort by taking over Florida Bay and operating 

 it for the time being as a Federal Refuge. An effective patrol 

 had been set up by Jack C. Watson, and this meant not only 

 thorough coverage of the entire region by boat, but a public 

 relations job that had made a conservationist or if not a con- 

 servationist then at least a Christian out of every fisherman, 



