I had heard there were spoonbills at Fort Desoto but I wasn’t expecting to find them. You can find one or two occasionally at the park but it’s rare to see a flock of them. As I walked out on north beach and headed out to Outback Key, I could see some tiny pink dots out on the spit.

I got about halfway to the spit area and took the above with my 400mm lens. Looks like they were sleeping so maybe they would still be there when I got out that far.

By the time I walked out there, stopping along the way to take pictures of shorebirds and chat with some photography friends, they were awake and moving around. People were starting to walk out ahead of me and jet skis were landing on the back side of the spit so the birds were awake. There were many pale young ones in the group and it was fun to watch them stretching and going to the water for a drink. All of the above were taken with my 400mm lens and cropped up so I was still pretty far out.

A while later they all flew off over to the other side of the park where no one could get to them to spend the afternoon.