Eurasian spoonbill
The Eurasian spoonbill is a large, elegant wading bird characterized by its long, broad black bill with a distinctive yellow, spoon-shaped tip, which it uses to scoop up a variety of food from shallow waters. Typically found in flocks, these birds exhibit a unique feeding behavior, sweeping their half-open bills through the water to catch insects, small fish, frogs, and other aquatic organisms without disturbing the mud. With a wingspan of three to five feet and white plumage, they inhabit shallow bodies of water such as estuaries, lakes, and marshes, favoring areas with muddy or sandy bottoms.
Eurasian spoonbills are social creatures, primarily active at night, and they establish breeding colonies between March and July. During this time, pairs build nests close together, either in reeds or elevated in trees, laying up to four eggs that both parents help to incubate. After hatching, the young spoonbills remain dependent on their parents for food and care, eventually fledging at about seven weeks of age. However, these birds face significant challenges due to habitat loss and pollution, threatening their populations in the wild.
Subject Terms
Eurasian spoonbill
A long, broad, black bill with a yellow, spoon-shaped tip gives this large, graceful wading bird its name. The bill's design is just right for scooping a wide range of food into the bird's mouth. Flocks of spoonbills move quietly along the shoreline at night as they feed.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Ciconiiformes
Family: Threskiornithidae
Genus: Platalea
Species: Leucorodia
With a long, rapid, side-sweeping motion, the half-open bill of the Eurasian spoonbill passes through the shallow water where the bird stands on its long, thin legs. Along the water's edge stands a flock of spoonbills all searching for food in a similar manner, either on shore or in the water. Each bird waits patiently for water beetles, caddis flies, and other aquatic insects or their larvae to enter the spoon-shaped tip of its bill. Other items which the bird may eat are certain plants, frogs, water snails, small crustaceans, tadpoles, worms, and fish. The spoonbill moves slowly through the shallow water so as not to stir up the mud or startle its prey.
The bird attached to this lengthy, spoon-tipped bill has a small head, long neck, and large body with long, black legs. It is up to three feet (one meter) from the tips of its toes to the tip of its bill. When the spoonbill spreads its wings, they are three to five feet (1 to 1 1/2 meters) across. The Eurasian spoonbill has white plumage over its entire body.
Suitable habitats for the bird's wading are shallow bodies of water with muddy or sandy bottoms. These include coastal lagoons, estuaries, lakes, channels, and marshes with reeds. These bodies of water may be either fresh or saltwater, and the birds prefer slow-moving or tidal waters. The Eurasian spoonbill is a social bird which usually lives in flocks of 50 or more birds, feeding during the night and resting during the day.
Spoonbill mating season is between March and July. Each male and female pair builds its large nest either on the ground among the reeds or up to 16 feet (five meters) above the ground in a tree. Nesting pairs in a colony may live three to six feet (one to two meters) from their neighbors, and the birds are quite territorial during these months. A female lays up to four eggs in her nest, and the male helps her incubate them for three weeks until they hatch. If the clutch, or batch, of eggs is eaten by a predator or lost in a flood, the female may lay another clutch that same season. Both parents hunt and then regurgitate food for their young. At one month of age, the young are too large to all fit in the nest, and so they perch on a nearby branch and wait for their parents to feed them. When they are seven weeks old they are ready to fly for the first time, but the family stays together until the young are older. Three years of growth prepares the young to mate for the first time.
The oldest known Eurasian spoonbill lived just over 28 years.
Pollution and the drainage of their wetland habitats are the greatest threats to these birds.