A distinctive pale waterbird with long pink-red legs, a bare bright pink-red face, and an odd and distinctive spoon-shaped bill that is obvious even in flight. The juvenile lacks the bright pink-red skin and has black tipped wings in flight. It breeds colonially in heronries. The African Spoonbill prefers large, quiet, shallow waterbodies where it forages by swinging its head from side-to-side, slicing its bill through the water, searching for small fish and aquatic invertebrates. It is mostly nomadic, wandering in response to local rainfall.