Audubon Florida’s Everglades Science Center Begins Annual Roseate Spoonbill Monitoring Efforts

The Everglades Science Center (ESC) has a busy season ahead as staff prepare to monitor nesting Roseate Spoonbills across Florida Bay.

This season, the team is led by Wading Bird Research Specialist Shauna Sayers, with assistance from Research Associate Kaycee Doherty, contractor Suzy Roebling, and Seasonal Research Assistant Allie Mallouk. The team plans to monitor 63 keys within Florida Bay, with sites scheduled for visitation once per season, three times per season, monthly, or weekly, depending on bird nesting activity and historic trends. At the nesting sites, researchers will climb into the mangroves to determine whether Roseate Spoonbills are nesting there and place tags on nests. They have special permits and permissions to conduct these studies using mirrors and cameras as well as visual observations.

The goal? To monitor individual nests through each step of the breeding process, from nest building to egg incubation to fledging. The Roseate Spoonbill is a critical indicator species for Florida Bay and the Everglades— nesting success or failure points to Everglades restoration impacts and/or the ongoing impacts of a changing climate. 

Audubon is Asking for Help Locating Banded Roseate Spoonbills

In 2003, Audubon scientists began applying leg bands to chicks in nests in Florida Bay and in Tampa Bay at the Richard T. Paul Alafia Bank Bird Sanctuary (Alafia Banks Sanctuary is leased from and managed in collaboration with The Mosaic Company and Port Tampa Bay as a bird sanctuary). In 2013, staff also began banding birds hatching from nests at St. Augustine Alligator Farm. In total, Audubon has banded about 3,000 Roseate Spoonbills. Banding spoonbill chicks has led to a greater understanding of dispersal rates and behavioral structures after nesting season has ended.

Audubon is asking interested photographers and birders to record banded spoonbills. Each band resight earns the spotter a special sticker and contributes to critical population data for this iconic Florida species.

In 2025, we received 24 reports of banded spoonbills through November. Have you seen one? Let us know at: audubon.org/florida/spoonbills.

Anyone who submits a report in 2025 will receive a limited-edition sticker.

Note: Give birds their space when trying to read a bird band. Use binoculars or a long zoom lens to avoid spooking or flushing the birds. 

About Audubon’s Everglades Science Center

ESC was established in the Florida Keys in 1939 by the National Audubon Society's first Director of Research, Robert Porter Allen. Allen began a full-time study of Roseate Spoonbills, living among them in a tent for weeks at a time. Although many scientists historically studied birds’ eating habits by killing them and examining their stomach contents, the spoonbill was so scarce that Allen had to find another way to study them. His research changed how scientists studied birds and left a legacy of more than 85 years of data investigating the spoonbill and its habitat. 

About Audubon

Audubon is a leading nonprofit conservation organization with 125 years of Florida science-based, community-driven impact, dedicated to protecting birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. Birds are powerful indicators of our planet’s health, acting as sentinels that warn us of environmental change and inspire action. Audubon works across the Western Hemisphere, driven by the understanding that what is good for birds is good for the planet. Through a collaborative, bipartisan approach across habitats, borders, and the political spectrum, Audubon drives meaningful and lasting conservation outcomes. With 800 staff and over 1.9 million supporters, Audubon is a dynamic and ever-growing force committed to ensuring a better planet for both birds and people for generations to come.