Spoonbill at Alkborough Flats, Lincolnshire

You can just make out the yellow patch on the birds' throat. I think that this is the remnants of breeding plumage

This adult Spoonbill was the only photographed bird yesterday on my twitch to see the Western Swamphen that has been frequenting the reed beds and marshes of Alkborough Flats in north Lincolnshire for the past couple of weeks. 'Swampy' was seen, after 6 hours on site, but at a distance of over half a mile and so photography was not an option. It made a nice change to see a Spoonbill without its' head tucked firmly under its' wing and therefore to see its' spatula shaped bill, or should that be spoon-shaped?

Spoonbill

Below is a short video of a Spoonbill at the Ouse Washes in Cambridgeshire. The bird was pretty distant and I had to use my cameras full zoom at 140x, hence the grainy, shaky footage, but the bird is obvious and you can see the strange way it feeds by moving its head from side to side.

I did take a few still photos, one at full zoom and one at 35x, not great, but you can see the bird.

Spoonbills used to breed in this country, until the 17th century, but were extinct as a breeding bird until the 1990's, when two young were raised in North-west England. Colonisation seems imminent, but they have not yet become established, although they are now a more regular sight, especially in the East of the country.

Spoonbill

This Spoonbill was present on the Nene Washes RSPB near Peterborough yesterday and today. It was pretty elusive yesterday and was not relocated after initially being seen on the river close to the reserve, but today it was showing very well on the reserve itself. This represents the first recording of this species in the PBC area since August 2008 (as far as I am aware), and is a very welcome addition to my PBC year list which has now reached 166 species.

The photographs below are only `record` shots as the bird was some distance away and the final images have been pretty heavily cropped, but the bird can clearly be seen feeding with its particular `sweeping` motion of its unusually shaped bill. To see a Spoonbill this active makes a pleasant change as normally when you see them they are asleep with their bill tucked under their wing.

This bird looks to be a juvenile and is probably from mainland Europe, where they are known to disperse from in August, although this species does breed in small numbers in Britain. The majority of these birds will spend the winter around the Mediterranean and West Africa, although some do stay in Britain.