How the Spoonbill Became Pink
The Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe after a drunken binge, and afterwards he slept it off for several eons. When he had recovered he was impressed by the complexity of what had evolved from his original inebriated impulse – galaxies and stars and planets and even life in countless forms crawling about on gazillions of worlds.
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He sent his dim-witted nephew Hiram to visit a random planet and report back on what had evolved there.
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“Don’t touch anything!” he instructed, “Just make notes and tell me what’s going on.”
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“Of course, Uncle” said Hiram, but secretly he determined he would like to have a go at this creating lark.
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When he arrived on Earth, hovering over the surface in the guise of a bowl of farfallone con funghi, he was impressed by the variety of life there already. First of all he created dogs (a big mistake, but that’s another story). He hovered over a swamp, and saw some medium sized brown birds digging for stuff in the shallow water with their beaks.
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“Aha!” thought Hiram, “let’s have some fun with these!” Waving his appendages, he transformed three pairs of the birds into knifebills, forkbills and spoonbills. The poor creatures at once sent up an enormous outcry about what had been done to them. So much so that, feeling a disturbance in the force, the FSM himself appeared.
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He was shocked to see what his idiot nephew had done, and as punishment banished him to spend five million years learning accountancy. Then he turned his attention to the poor creatures below him. He did not approve of interfering with natural selection, but something had to be done.
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“Help us, Mighty One” cried the knifebills, rather indistinctly, “We can’t possibly live like this!”
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So the FSM took pity on them, and with a wave of his noodly appendages turned the pair into brightly-coloured macaws with strong beaks to crack nuts, and they thanked him politely and flew off happy.
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The forkbills were also pretty distressed, with no idea of how to feed themselves, so the FSM turned them into snowy egrets, with white feather and yellow feet to attract fish. And they were happy too.
He turned to the spoonbills, and found they were swishing their long spoon-shaped beaks through the water to pick up morsels of food.
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“What do you need, guys?” he asked, “Can I change you into something else?”
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“No, we’re fine, sir” they replied, “We’re doing just great like this.”
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The female spoonbill added “A nice plumage would be good – this brown is pretty boring.”
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“Fine” said the FSM, “You deserve it for being so adaptable. What colour would you like?”
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After the male spoonbill’s suggestion of tartan had been vetoed, they settled on pink, and so it was done. The FSM left them happily swishing through the water in their bright pink plumage, and went back to rescind one and two-thirds million years from his nephew’s sentence.
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And that is how the roseate spoonbill got its pink feathers.
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(Author’s note: I have been asked how I know that the FSM is male; but clearly no female would be stupid enough to create the universe after a drunken binge)
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(The background painting is 'Roseate Spoonbills', painted in oils on canvas)