Tri-State Outdoor News

I guess it just goes to show you never know whom, or rather what, will show up at the Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area. Take for instance the odd-looking pink bird that showed up in May. No, it wasn’t a flamingo, but pink it was. I saw it with my own eyes. I even took Evelyn, my daughter, simply because seeing this creature in the wilds of Indiana may be a once-in-a lifetime opportunity.

While not a flamingo – although flamingos would be quite at home with it – what showed up was a Roseate Spoonbill – plus a couple of other tropical goodies as well.

“Hands down, this is the oddest sighting we’ve had (at the Goose Pond),” said property manager Brad Feaster. “We’ve had other birds more significant, such as whooping cranes, but the spoonbill is by far the oddest.”

What makes the spoonbill sighting so unique isn’t its status in the bird world. The bird isn’t considered rare, threatened or endangered. What makes seeing this bird in Indiana so special is the simple fact that it’s way of its normal range. The bird simply isn’t supposed to be here, although historical records indicate they have been spotted in the state before.

The roseate spoonbill is a member of the ibis family and fairly common along the Gulf Coast and breeds mainly in South America and Caribbean. In fact, the Gulf Coast is about as far north the bird generally ventures although there have been sightings inland along the southern tier states and along the eastern coast as far as Delaware.

Its main food is shrimp, which is where it gets its pink color. And although Indiana lacks shrimp, Feaster said there are numerous microinvertebrates the bird can feed on in addition to small crawfish.

Feaster’s first reaction was, “No way,” when Lee Sterrenburg called about the sighting. Sterrenburg, a retired English professor, is a lifelong birder who volunteers a great deal of time monitoring Goose Pond bird species and helps compiles the official species list for the area along with Ken Brock and James Cole.

Feaster, who was on a bike ride that evening, missed seeing the bird by five minutes but did see the photos taken just before the bird took flight. Subsequent searches for the spoonbill in the following days failed to locate the misguided bird elsewhere on the 8,000-acre property. Those birdwatchers that did get to see the brief visitor were a few of the lucky ones to have such an opportunity to see such a wayward bird.

Feaster said it was about nine or ten days later when he got a second call telling him that the spoonbill had returned. It seems that the bird had taken up with a group of Great Egrets that had found their way to the Goose Pond as well. It’s only speculation that the spoonbill followed the egrets from Florida.

The bird did another disappearing act on the morning of Father’s Day only to reappear on June 30. It’s of no real surprise since the Goose Pond covers 8 square miles. Some areas, such as the main pool, are 2 miles from corner to corner giving avian visitors large areas of recluse.

“It probably had never left,” Fester said. “It was probably just hiding out.”

It didn’t take long for word of the spoonbill’s return to hit Indiana’s Birding List on the Internet. Birders from throughout Indiana and beyond began flocking to the Goose Pond for an unheard of viewing for a bird that’s supposed to spend its entire life along the Gulf of Mexico. Numerous birders have seen the spoonbill in Florida, but to see it in Indiana and add the spoonbill to an Indiana “bird list” is rare treat.

“The traffic and cars pulled off the highway was almost constant the whole time the bird was here (the second time),” Feaster said. Now that the bird has surfaced a third time, he expects traffic to pick up again.

Feaster said when it showed up the second time, his reaction wasn’t so much shock as it was excitement.

“I was just glad it’s here and in a place where so many people can see it. At one time I counted nearly a dozen vehicles pulled over with people out looking at it. Normally, I might see one or two cars a day but the spoonbill attracted a lot of attention, especially from the media,” he said.

Feaster added that he ran into one bird watcher who drove from East Lansing, Michigan the day he heard about it. “He heard about the spoonbill in the morning and was here that very evening,” Fester said.

As Feaster said, this is the first official documentation of the Roseate Spoonbill in the Hoosier state. He said historical records show that spoonbills were “recorded” in the 1800’s after at least one of the birds was shot near Vincennes. He added that even though there is this account, there is no physical evidence such has a skin or any other body part.

As Feaster said, even though unique, the spoonbill was only mildly significant when compared to other species of birds that have found their way to the Goose Pond, such as the Whooping Cranes. An while those birds attracted a lot of attention, their arrival is generally not publicized due to their endangered status.

Along with the arrival of the spoonbill, a handful of other birds, rather ducks have also been attracting a lot of attention. And like the spoonbill, these birds aren’t generally found in Indiana but found in good numbers in Florida and further south into the tropics.

Although more frequent to Indiana than the spoonbill, both the Fulvous Whistling duck and Black-bellied Whistling duck can be found at the Goose Pond this summer. These ducks have also been in the area for several weeks and it appears as though they may spend the summer.

“It’s pretty unique to see Fulvous ducks in Indiana,” Feaster said. “The last Indiana sighting was in 2002 but no where in Indiana has there been a place you can go and see both the Fulvous and Black-bellied Whistling duck in the same day.”

And while we’re on the subject of birds more common to the Gulf States, as of June 30, Feaster reports a batch of American White Pelicans have appeared. While pelicans are fairly common in Hoosier birdscape during spring and fall migrations, to have a bunch in the summer is just another morsel of unique species generally not seen in southern Indiana during the summer.

The Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area is undoubtedly turning out to be everything and more when it comes to unique wildlife habitats. Its 8,0000 acres, most of which are restored wetlands, was named early on as a “significant birding area” by the National Audubon Society. The official list of birds sighted here since 1999 tops out at 212 and when one scans the categories this list contains, it appears as though a revised list for the Goose Pond should list a “you never know” category. Because with the sighting of an odd looking pink bird thousand miles or more outside of its normal range, you really just never know what you’ll see at the Goose Pond.