Spoonbill ...........

17 June - One of the species that always excites me is Spoonbill, such an exotic looking bird, it looks special, and is indeed special to see in CWP with few records. One was found on Pit 74 from Twitcher's Gate this afternoon, but not seen early evening - when I heard about it I set off to have a look about 9pm, but of course this time of year it is light til about 10. Various White Egrets were on the scrap but not the bird in question, and I left about 9.40 as it started to get dark. Halfway home, I had a message to say that the bird was indeed still on the scrape and was feeding - so I headed back and had brief but good 'scope views as it fed behind the bund, being partially obscured at times despite being such a large bird. The bill had a yellow tip indicating an adult-type plumage, but the views were not good enough to see whether the primaries were white of whether there was any crest present, indicating breeding plumage. Another good bird for the Water Park and the year list.