A bird this unusual must surely be from the tropics, but not this one.
The Eurasian spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) is a large white wading bird with black legs and a spatulate bill that’s black with a yellow tip. In breeding plumage they have feather crests and yellow chins. Click here for another view.
Spoonbills live in fresh and saltwater wetlands where they hunt for prey by sweeping their long bills side to side below the surface, snapping them shut when they feel prey close by.
Amazingly this spoonbill nests in both temperate and tropical zones. Though they’re sparse in Europe, their range extends to Africa and wide swaths of Asia (see map). Four hundred years ago Eurasian spoonbills disappeared from the British Isles. Happily, they returned to breed in the marshes of Norfolk County in 2010.
Of the six spoonbill species on Earth, all but one are white. The pink one lives in our hemisphere, the roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja).
Click here to see the six species of spoonbills, Platalea. Ours is the one with “A ha ha!” in his name: Platalea ajaja!
(photo credits:
Eurasian spoonbill by Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.net, via Wikimedia Commons
map of European breeding range from Wikimedia Commons; click on the map to see the original
Roseate spoonbill by Steve Gosser)
Thanks Kate for the spoonbill story. I saw some in the wild in Florida last spring….it was the coolest thing ever! Do you know where Steve Gosser took the photo of the roseate that you included in your post?
Susan, Steve took the photo in Florida at least 5 years ago.
Steve, that is a stunning photo! Kate, thanks for including it.