Photo: Michel Langeveld | Wikimedia Commons
A large wading bird with a long beak and elegant white plumage, the spoonbill is booming as UK landowners improve wetland habitats and tree cover. Once common across England and Wales, it was hunted to local extinction about 300 years ago. But in 2010, a colony was discovered on the North Norfolk saltmarshes, thought to have journeyed over from the Netherlands and France. Now breeding pairs and colonies can be found in eight locations and this year, boasted a record 77 young from 43 pairs of spoonbills. Andrew Bloomfield, who manages the national nature reserve at Holkham estate, recently brought together a group of spoonbill hosts in one room. “All the wetland work that has been done in the UK will play a part in safeguarding a lot of birds that are moving across from the continent because of global warming,” he says. “We even get spoonbills wintering sometimes in the UK, which would have been unheard of 50 to 100 years ago, as the weather is much milder than it used to be.”
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