Roseate spoonbill: a kilogram of feathers for $100,000 (9 photos)

These unique birds have surpassed even flamingos in beauty and glamor.





Ready to sell some of my feathers! Look how beautiful they are!

How expensive can feathers be? As it turned out, incredible! The price of an eiderdown blanket can reach $5,000! But even this money is nothing compared to the cost of roseate spoonbill feathers. In the 18th century, a kilogram of her feathers could cost a fortune—more than $100,000 today! Where do such crazy amounts come from?



Spoonbills have a fast, flapping flight that makes them look a little goofy.

Primarily due to fashion trends. The high society of the past was crazy about hats with feathers. And the larger the feathers, the brighter and rarer they are, the more expensive the hat, and the cooler its owner. Roseate spoonbill feathers were a unique commodity. No one in the entire New World had such large soft pink feathers. Only European-African pink flamingos could boast of something similar.





The difference in color between the spoonbill and the pink flamingo. Which color do you like best?

The wingspan of an adult spoonbill reaches 130 centimeters, and its feathers are of the appropriate size. But it’s very difficult to get them. Roseate spoonbills live almost exclusively in the swamps and mangroves of America. These places are difficult to access and full of dangerous creatures even by modern standards, let alone the 18th century.



To be honest, spoonbill feathers are not worth the money.

And at the same time, not all birds were suitable for plumes. The fact is that roseate spoonbills cannot produce red pigments. They get it with food - fresh and saltwater crustaceans. To fish such little things out of the pond, the birds turned their beaks into something like a spoon. Animals take water into it, then filter it and eat the organic residue.



I don’t know if the guys filter the market, but they understand how to filter water.

Crayfish is their favorite dish. But they are not found in abundance everywhere. Birds often move on to larger foods: frogs, small fish, insects and pieces of algae. And in this case, they lose their color in a couple of months.



Wow, you don't look good. Drink a heavy dose of red immediately!

Such difficulties gave rise to a high price for a product that was already a luxury item. But even the cost did not weed out those who wanted to purchase hats with unique feathers. Therefore, the extremely profitable craft of feather extraction was constantly expanding.



And at some point the spoonbills couldn’t stand it. Birds are not particularly fertile anyway: they begin to reproduce only in the 3rd year of life. During the season, a couple lays no more than 5 eggs, half of which are guaranteed to go to feed raccoons, birds of prey and aggressive ants. And the additional burden on the species undermined its already small resources.



Family gatherings at parents' home. And how long does it take for the nest to survive?

By the end of the 19th century, the species was on the verge of extinction. Throughout Florida, a small population of barely a hundred birds has survived from it. In other regions of the New World the situation was no better.

Lovers of fashionable hats were the first to howl. Feather prices have skyrocketed. But there were still people buying a gram of feathers at a price of 160% of a gram of gold. Therefore, the population continued to decline. The ornithologists were the second to ring the bell. They managed to persuade the governments of the United States and Mexico to ban the hunting of spoonbills and other endangered bird species. And soon the fashion changed. Then even poachers were left out of work.



You can tell two things from this photo. Spoonbills are in complete order in terms of numbers, and they readily form mixed flocks with some other bird species.

And the birds began a new dawn. At first, not without the help of people, they restored their numbers. And then they even expanded theirth area! Over the past 10 years, birds have been found in the central regions of the United States, and in 2021 they reached New York. And all thanks to climate warming!