Hey, fellow bird lover! 👋
Welcome back to The Flyer 🐦 So glad you're here. Each month we bring you original stories, stunning bird photos, fascinating tidbits from the birding world, and a little something to make you stop and look up. Whether you're a lifelong birder or just someone who loves seeing a flash of color outside the window — this one's for you.✨
“Excuse me, sir, will you teach me how to ski?”
BIRD OF THE WEEK
The Roseate Spoonbill
by Paul Crook (Unsplash)
📍 Found in southern North America, Central America, and South America
🎶 Click here to hear their calls
It’s got long, spindly legs and pink feathers — but no, it’s not a flamingo. It’s the blush-colored Roseate Spoonbill, with red eyes and its telltale rounded bill, which is used to sift through shallow waters looking for small fish and crustaceans. They can often be found in social crowds of other Spoonbills, Herons, and other birds that share their swampy foraging skills.
Like flamingos, Spoonbills are pink because of their rosy diet of shrimpy creatures with carotenoids, the same pigment found in carrots. Roseate Spoonbills are a special sight: they’re one of only six Spoonbill species in the world, and the only species on the American continents.
Fun fact: Spoonbill chicks aren’t born with the round shape of their namesake bills; they start flattening when chicks are around 9 days old, and are fully grown by 39 days.
by Richard Sagredo (Unsplash)
Birding bits you should know about...
by Zdeněk Macháček (Unsplash)
📷 Ooh and Ahh
2025 bird photographers of the year winners, in pictures
The Guardian showcases the top shots of the year from tens of thousands of entries.
🐍 Start Nesting
Some Birds Adorn Their Nests With Snakeskin to Scare Off Predators, New Study Finds
New research shows how some birds make their nests a little extra spicy with shed snakeskin so enemies don’t come calling.
👓 Gear Up
All the gear you need to get started birding
Wired breaks down the binoculars, backpacks, bird feeders, and more you might want to secure before springtime birding amps up.
An amazing bird photo taken by one of our community members. Submit yours to hello@flyingcolors.co to be considered for an upcoming edition!
by @carolpopegordon on Twitter
A QUOTE
Thou sing’st alone on the bare wintry bough,
As if Spring with its leaves were around thee now;
And its voice that was heard in the laughing rill,
And the breeze as it whispered o’er meadow and hill,
Still fell on thine ear, as it murmured along
To join the sweet tide of thine own gushing song.
— From “The Winter Bird” by Jones Very
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About Flying Colors
Flying Colors makes premium organic wild bird food, offering ethically sourced, toxin-free seeds and nuts of the highest quality to nourish wild birds of all types and inspire birders of all ages.
Each specialty blend and single-origin creation is rigorously sourced & researched, and every jar is produced with love & packaged by hand in small batches in New York's Hudson Valley and tested in our own backyards.
