The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Most birdwatchers will know that there have been Spoonbills present at Gib Point for most of the last 3 months - numbers varying between 1 and 8.
Natural England have just announced that at their Holkham Reserve in North Norfolk 4 pairs of Spoonbills have fledged 6 young and that another 2 pairs are still feeeding young.
This goes along way to explaining why Spoonbills have now become regular on this side of the wash. The movements of the 2 colour ringed birds shows that there is regular movement to and fro across the wash.
What good news!!

I was in Norfolk yesterday (Aug 5th), and saw 14 Spoonbills at Cley (what a great sight when all in fligt together!), the flock included the colour ringed birds that were at Gib Pt a few weeks back. Later went to Morston creek and saw more spoonbills. Final ended up a Holkam where I didn't see a single Spoonbill, but was told they were there! Adding up all the spoonbills on the East coast at the moment and you get an impressive number.

Interestingly, when looking at the flock of 14 birds, there were no juveniles present, but there was a variation in colour of the ‘adult’ birds. Some were a more pure white than others, suggesting these are 1st summer birds, presumably hatch in Holland last year? There was also a lot of mutual preening going on, and I saw several birds picking up sticks and offering them to others, some sort of bonding display?

Andrew

_________________
-----------------------------------------------------
Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/