A rara avis is the roseate spoonbill.

On my rides, I frequently see egrets; white ibises; and sometimes glossy ibises. This morning I spotted a pair of birds that looked like ibises;  but the upper chest and back were white, and the rest of the body was a darkish shade of pink.

These birds were too small to be flamingos. I thought perhaps they might be scarlet ibises; but as far as I know, their range in the USA is restricted to southern Florida.

When I got back home, I pulled out my old bird guide. It doesn’t have a picture of a scarlet ibis, but it does show the roseate spoonbill!

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a spoonbill outside of a zoo. There’s a zoo close by here, so maybe those two were fugitives.

Enough about ornithology. Back to the business of riding. Today I put in 37.5 miles. The forecast last night showed wind from the ESE at 5-9 mph. By the time I started back home, the wind was up to 12 mph. What a drag!

I kept pressing my Garmin’s lap button when I felt that I was slowing down. Outward-bound, except for the warm-up mile, I averaged over 15 mph. At the time, there didn’t seem to be any wind at all! Tailwinds can fool you that way.

Coming back home, my average speed never dropped below 10 mph, which really surprised me. Time was when a 12 mph headwind would have pushed my forward motion down to 8-9 mph.

Aside from the wind, it was great for riding. There were enough clouds that the sun was sometimes obscured, which helped keep me cooler. I saw those spoonbills! My father would have loved to see them. He was quite the bird-watcher. A rara avis sure would have tickled him.