The Eurasian spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia), or common spoonbill, is a wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae, native to Europe, Africa and Asia. The species is partially migratory with the more northerly breeding populations mostly migrating south for the winter.
Taxonomy
The Eurasian spoonbill was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the current binomial name Platalea leucorodia. Linnaeus cited works by earlier authors including the description and illustration by the English naturalist Eleazar Albin that was published in 1734. Linnaeus specified the type locality as Europe but restricted it to Sweden in 1761. The genus name Platalea is Latin and means "broad", referring to the distinctive shape of the bill; the specific epithet leucorodia is from Ancient Greek meaning "spoonbill", itself derived from , "white" and "heron". A molecular phylogenetic study of the spoonbills based on mitochondrial DNA found that the Eurasian spoonbill is sister taxon to a clade containing the royal and black-faced spoonbills.
Three subspecies are recognised. These are listed below with their breeding ranges.
- P. l. leucorodia Linnaeus, 1758 – Europe to north China, India and Sri Lanka
- P. l. balsaci Naurois & Roux, F, 1974 – west Mauritania
- P. l. archeri Neumann, 1928 – coasts of the Red Sea and Somalia
The royal spoonbill (Platalea regia) was formerly considered as a subspecies.
Description
thumb|left|Eurasian spoonbill video
This species is almost unmistakable in most of its range. The breeding bird is all white except for its dark legs, black bill with a yellow tip, and a yellow breast patch like a pelican. It has a crest in the breeding season. Non-breeders lack the crest and breast patch, and immature birds have a pale bill and black tips to the primary flight feathers. Unlike herons, spoonbills fly with their necks outstretched. The Eurasian spoonbill differs from the African spoonbill with which in overlaps in winter, in that the latter species has a red face and legs, and no crest.
They are mostly silent. Even at their breeding colonies the main sounds are bill snapping, occasional deep grunting and occasional trumpeting noises.
Distribution and habitat
left|thumb|270x270px|Common spoonbill in Danube Biosphere Reserve, Ukraine
thumb|In breeding plumage, Spain
This species is found widely in Europe, Asia and Africa. In Europe, it breeds from the United Kingdom and Portugal in the west, locally through the continent; ranging north to Denmark and east to the Balkans and the Black Sea. In Asia, it breeds in a broad band across the central part of the continent, from the Black Sea to the Korean Peninsula, as well as Kuwait, southern Iraq, Iran, southern Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. In Africa, it breeds locally in coastal Mauritania, but more widely along the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden coasts. Whereas those breeding in warmer parts of Asia, in Africa and the Iberian Peninsula are resident or only move locally, more northern breeders generally migrate south to winter in southwestern Europe, the northern half of Africa or warm parts of Asia. However, some northern birds do remain in the general region during the winter, including the United Kingdom, the Low Countries and France. Outside of its normal range, they have been recorded as a rare vagrant in Ireland, Belarus, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, the Canary Islands, Greenland, Nigeria, Uganda, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados, and Saint Lucia.
Eurasian spoonbills show a preference for extensive, shallow wetlands with muddy clay or fine, sandy beds. They may inhabit any type of marsh, river, lake, floodplain or mangrove swamp, be it fresh, brackish or saline water. They are especially attracted to locations with undisturbed islands for nesting and habitats with dense, riparian-emergent vegetation (e.g. reedbeds) and scattered trees/shrubs, especially willow Salix spp., oak Quercus spp. or poplar Populus spp. Eurasian spoonbills may also frequent sheltered marine habitats during the winter, such as deltas, estuaries, tidal creeks and coastal lagoons.
Conservation
Overall, the Eurasian spoonbill is not threatened and the total global population was estimated at 63–65,000 mature birds in 2015. but since then it has been increasing and was estimated to number 29,000 mature birds in 2020. For example, in the Netherlands, the population had reached a low point of less than 150 breeding pairs in 1968, but due to better habitat protection and bans of toxins like DDT it rapidly increased from the 1980s, reaching almost 3000 pairs by 2015. Up to the early 2000s, in Europe only the Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Greece had sizeable breeding populations. The species became more thoroughly established in Denmark in 1996 (where a few birds, likely from the Netherlands, arrived and began breeding) and its population has since rapidly increased with multiple colonies; first passing 100 pairs in 2011, It is likely that this northward spread has been aided by increasing temperatures. In the United Kingdom, it was extirpated around 1668, although in the previous century it had been a widespread breeding species in southern England and Wales, even near London. This culminated with the formation of a small colony of 6 breeding pairs at Holkham in Norfolk in 2010. In 2011, 8 breeding pairs nested, successfully fledging 14 young, and in 2018 the colony had increased to 28 breeding pairs. It made an action plan for the bird in 2008. In 2013 the group joined the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds.
Gallery
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File:Junge Löffler im Nest.JPG|Nestlings
File:SL Bundala NP asv2020-01 img06.jpg|Immature Eurasian spoonbill, Bundala National Park
File:Spoonbill from the Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland.jpg|ID composite
File:Platalea Leucorodia in Danubius Pannonico-Mysicus 1726 by Marsigli.jpg|1726 drawing by Jacobus Houbraken
File:Hieronymus Bosch 024.jpg|Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights, 15th century
File:NIEdot374.jpg|New International Encyclopedia, 1902
</gallery>