Pinky!

Greetings all! Not much to give on the update front. My ankle has been a big disappointment and we are considering simply declaring Excommunicado from the family – no Thanksgiving gathering for you! Been working on it for over a month now and it is refusing to comply to a level I demand. Broke down and went to the Ortho to get some glamour shots to ensure there were no serious reasons for all the whining it was doing. After noting all the historical trauma he could see surrounding it, he noted no fractures. Diagnosis, severe high ankle sprain caused by the second incident during the race. At least 4 to 5 more weeks of recovery..for a normal patient. I was waiting for the doctor to ask the ankle if it felt safe at home. Doubled the rehab and started with 4 mile walks this week. Barring any legitimate complaints, should be on the run in a week – two tops.

Beyond that, it has been an interesting week here stateside as we carried out the keystone of our republic to elect our representatives. I’ll leave assessments on the actual outcomes for individual reflection, but there are a few ancillary things that were loud and clear from my perspective. Lamestream media is effectively dead. Clearly the propaganda machine has little to no influence over a majority of the population. Yours truly has been railing against their hyperbole for years. In that same vein, partisan pollsters and fact checkers deserve a headstone in our haunted cemetery to celebrate their occupation demise. Lastly, entertainers and our self-righteous elites have lost their flock. I am sure there will be further peripheral fallout as America comes to terms with the outcomes, some good, some bad, some red, some white, some blue and all the colors between…as in PINK!

Hit the jump to learn about a feathered friend that hasn’t compromised its celebrity status from the recent election.

I am excited to bring you a couple of firsts on the blog today starting with a new birding location. Let me clarify that, a new birding location to Intrigued, those in the Panhandle-ish area of Florida are likely well aware of this wildlife gem. Need to give Linda full credit for this find. We were looking for places to explore on our pass through northern Florida back in April 2023 (I know, I know but to my credit, I am now over halfway through processing the pictures from that trip). The plan was to make a very wide detour on our way to Dauphin Island for the spring migration.

Gainesville was the farthest extent of the trip before we turned back to follow the coastline back to Dauphin Island. From the previous posts you already know how productive the Gainesville stop was with the highlight being the Snail Kites (link here and here). Linda noticed there was quite a lot of eBird activity for a place called St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (link here), conveniently located in St. Marks, FL.

According to their website, St. Marks NWR was established in 1931 as a wintering habitat for migrating birds and considered one of the founding locations in the national refuge system. A visit to St. Marks places you in the midst of 86,000 acres that encompass 43 miles along the Gulf Coast. St. Marks is a daily visit refuge as it lacks any camping facilities. Linda found an RV park that put us in close proximity to this park as well as another site we visited called Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park (link here). I’ll cover Wakulla Springs in a future post, but as a teaser they have Manatees and probably best known as the location they filmed the Creature from the Black Lagoon (link here).

Back to St. Marks. There is a fee to get into this refuge. Pedestrians are charged $1, vehicles $6 with an option for a $25 annual pass. Not outrageous by any means and based on what we saw there, an incredibly low IpS (Investment per Species) factor – our primary evaluation criteria here at Intrigued. That IpS value goes down even lower when you include the bonus reduction adjustments for +1s (1/2x for lifers, 1/4x for annual +1s). This particular visit led to the pink lifer you have been looking at.

Quick setup. Admittedly I had done zero research before we loaded up the car and headed over. I prefer complete confidence in Linda versus any insinuations of laziness on my part hehehe. Noting this only to point out I was going in absolutely cold – no target birds, no expectations, a rare stress free excursion into the field. Note to Intrigued staff, this carefree and careless approach to birding must be requested in writing and approved by management before going into the field. There is no lollygagging on our team ha (link here).

Paid our fee and feverishly tore open the refuge map provided by a very nice volunteer at the entrance. “Wow, this place is big!” There were several pull-offs along the single road that ran to the lighthouse at the far end of the refuge. Decided to go all the way out and then slowly make our way back. One of those fortunate decisions when you look back at it.

There was a large body of water off to our left as we neared the lighthouse. Needless to say, I was scanning the waters looking for anything with feathers. Focus was primarily on the near bank/water with occasional glances further out to process as much as I could as Linda continued to the destination. Too startled to use our agreed upon “birdalertword” for emergency stoppage required, I blurted out “What is that!?!”. There might have been an expletive in there for good measure. Linda followed my gaze and assessed it as a Roseate Spoonbill. For the record, that happens to be Linda’s favorite bird so if it is tall, has wings and a bill it usually gets classified as a Spoon. At least this time the color palette was similar.

I was not convinced of Linda’s ID or mine for that matter. Sometimes hope can taint an proper ID and my hasty thought seemed a stretch to far. This warranted more scrutiny and jumped out of the car to get a better look with The Beast. Future mental recall, next time inform Linda first so she can get the car stopped. Maybe that was one of the historic traumas the doctor was noticing ha.

Quickly brought the big glass on the bright pink spot standing far out in the water. It was taking everything The Beast had to give me additional detail – as you can see from the earlier shots in this post, 400mm was woefully inadequate. Should have grabbed the tele before ejecting myself from the car. Linda had to continue to the parking lot due to the limited shoulder. Found a nearby tree to help stabilize the glass. Snap, chimp, digital zoom, snap, chimp, digital zoom…repeat until fairly confident I was looking at an American Flamingo. How could this be, I was not in a zoo or other captive containment facility. Up to this point I had relied on Cornell’s website to form my understanding that the Flamingo was not a resident of the states beyond a few migrants that would show up from time to time on the southern most Florida coast.

Maybe the corporate media propaganda machine had infected the official birding sites. Since this sighting, I have done additional research and noticed that eBird’s sightings map has quite a few scattered across the southeastern portions of the US. I keep forgetting that there is an option to see this same sightings map directly from the Cornell site (go to maps and hit the Sightings Map button directly to the right of the Range Map button near the top of the page).

So caught up in the moment, I didn’t notice a couple that had made their way up to where I was standing. Based on the camera they were carrying they were probably having a hard time getting any detail out that far. “What is that?” Great minds think alike ha. “I believe it is an American Flamingo.” “Here!?!” Deja vu. I took a few more shots in hopes of getting something respectable in the tin and then made the trek back to Linda. “I can confirm that it is an American Flamingo!” “Here!?!” Everybody do the Time Warp (link here).

Unfortunately, our brightly colored bird picked a spot that was equally distant from all convenient access points. There was a path that led out from the parking lot and appeared to circle said body of water. For some stupid reason forgot to bring the tele again as I left Linda to tend to the dogs while I headed out for a better look. That didn’t prove out to be a better vantage point, but met a nice couple on the way back. They asked if I had seen Pinky. “You mean the Flaming out there (pointing back the way I had just come from)?” “Yes, that’s Pinky”. Hmmm interesting, it appears to have an official name – granted not the most original.

Turns out this couple was down from Toronto specifically to see this resident celebrity (link here). Even told a funny story about how they were being questioned by customs on the way down here as to their nature of their trip – “To see Pinky of course”. They provided the customs agent the whole story regarding St. Mark’s famous resident. I can just imagine how that played out …”is Pinky a local drug dealer?” ha.

They happily repeated the information for my enjoyment and education. Pinky wound up at St. Marks thanks to being blown off course during Hurricane Michael back in 2018. Each year after that it would return (alone) every winter with the rest of the migrating birds to the area. There was a disturbance in the force (read Hurricane Idalia) that brought 6 or a “flamboyance” of new American Flamingos to the area back in September 2023 (link here). About 5 months since our sighting.

It is unclear if Pinky decided to join this new flamboyance. Noting that the Rock Star link provided above was written in August of that year gives some clue that it at least stayed another month. I cannot find any articles or videos of Pinky past this date. Did a quick look on eBird and there has not been any reports of an American Flamingo recently. If anybody has any additional information on Pinky please provide us details in the comments. He (as well as other friends in the Florida area) has been on our minds since the last two hurricanes crashed through the region.

Okay, now time to provide you some background on the American Flamingo species as is tradition, especially for the new lifers. Adult Flamingos look similar with the exception of the hue variation which I’ll get to in just a second. No idea if Pinky is a he or she, someone would need to look under the hood heheheh. The juveniles, however, are quite a bit different. I was completely unaware of this distinction before researching for this post (and seeing images of the new flamboyance that flew into the area). Confirming with Cornell, juvis do not display the orange/pink hues of their elders, rather a “monochromatic” feathering of whites, greys, blacks and browns.

Flamingos are highly colonized and feed by using their tongues and rather odd looking bills to filter out food such as Brine, crustaceans and related invertebrates. It is the Brine and a few other dietary elements that produce the richness of their colorful hues. Unlike the Roseate Spoonbills whose coloring is divorced from their diet, the higher levels of carotenoids consumed leads to more beautiful coloring. Pinky seems to be doing quite alright in this category.

UPDATE 11/11/2024: I need to thank Sam (link here) for pointing out a misunderstanding related to the Spoonbill coloring. They do indeed get the intensity of their rosy hues from their diet! Consistent with Sam’s expertise and several birding sites, their color variations are due to their varying levels of consumed carotenoids and not simply based on their maturity as previous thought. Appreciate the assist Sam – always learning and growing.

I doubt I will ever forget my first encounter with Pinky. It definitely stands right up there with the likes of my first Whooping Crane, Bat Falcon, Burrowing Owl and Elegant Trogon meetings which hold top spots in my birding highlights.

Hope you enjoyed learning about this Florida rock star. I wish it well wherever it may be. Time to put a bow on this. We are up at Mayo for Linda’s annual heart valve checks and need come up to speed on her appointments. Take care everyone. Here’s a bonus video we took of the resident Flamingos at the Texas Aquarium in Corpus Christi – hopefully it will bring a smile.