The spoonbill's bill is flattened and widened at the tip into a spoon, and the inner surfaces carry dense touch receptors. Hunting is tactile: the bird wades with the bill partly open and submerged, swings the head through a wide arc, and closes the bill reflexively when something solid brushes the sensitive tissue.
This frees it from needing clear water. Roseate spoonbills work turbid tidal flats, mangrove channels and muddy lagoons for small fish, shrimp, aquatic insects and crustaceans, feeding readily in conditions where a visual hunter such as a heron would struggle. It also explains the steady, methodical forward walk that distinguishes a foraging spoonbill from a stalking heron.
The common confusion is with flamingos, which the pink colour invites. Flamingos filter tiny organisms from water through lamellae; spoonbills seize individual prey items. Both, however, get their pink from dietary carotenoids, chiefly in the spoonbill's case from the crustaceans it eats.