Fledgling FLight

by AnnaJo Vahle

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Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

20.000 x 16.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Fledgling FLight

Artist

AnnaJo Vahle

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Canvas

Description

A friend and I spent the morning at Stick Marsh. This is part of the Blue Cypress Conservation Area west of Vero Beach in Indian River County. It is on the Atlantic coast in Central Florida. We had heard that a large colony of roseate spoonbills were there. The chicks were fledgling. We found some good spots to watch and set up our cameras. I got quite a few nice photos of various spoonbills practicing their flying. Some were more clumsy than others. All were fun to watch.

I based this painting on some of the photographs that I took. I simplified the background using the basic colors of the sky and trees. It was a perfect compliment to the pink colors of the young birds. I used a 16 inch by 20 inch stretched canvas as a support. Acrylic paint is the medium.

Gorgeous at a distance and bizarre up close is the Roseate Spoonbill. Locally common in coastal Florida, Texas, and southwest Louisiana, they are usually in small flocks, often associating with other waders. Spoonbills feed in shallow waters, walking forward slowly while they swing their heads from side to side, sifting the muck with their wide flat bills.

Roseate spoonbill fledglings leave the nest for good after 35 to 42 days. They perfect their flight after 49 to 56 days.

Roseate Spoonbills slowly walk through shallow water with their bodies held horizontally and their spoon-shaped bill underwater feeling for prey. They sleep while standing, often on one leg with the head tucked under a shoulder. Roseate Spoonbills are social birds that gather in small to large (anywhere from 2 to around 400) groups when feeding and roosting. They fly to and from feeding and roosting areas with slow and deep wingbeats with their legs and neck fully extended. When foraging spoonbills spot a group of spoonbills flying overhead they stick their necks and bills straight up into the air in a posture called sky gazing. Spoonbills share the roosting and nesting colony with egrets, herons, and ibises.

Uploaded

January 15th, 2019

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