I wish I knew who took this stunning photograph (I presume it's a photograph), it's of Roseate spoonbills (Platalea ajaja - Ajaja is a South American native name for the bird).
As with pink flamingos their roseate pigmentation is due to the canthaxathin in the crustaceans they eat. The ethereal beauty of their plumage is a challenge for any artist to capture, this painting is by Krysti Melaine;
“A bowl of spoonbills” isn't a main course in a Dadaist restaurant; it seems a “bowl” is the collective noun pedants apply to spoonbills. I imagine it's because the drinking bowl is synonymous with conviviality and that these birds, when sifting through the mud of shallow waters with their spatulate bills, often mix with other large wading birds. As a possible result of their gregariousness Roseate spoonbills are serially monogamous (Parallels can be found in nature for any form of aberrant behaviour – including one's own).
