Went for a short drive today to a local wetland sanctuary and found this spectacular -looking fellow.
He’s a Yellow-billed spoonbill (for obvious reasons!) and had built himself quite an impressively sized nest about 5 ft (1.5m) in diameter and around 18 inches (0.5m) tall. I’m not sure if he built it to attract a mate or he was guarding it for the moment, but i did not spy his good lady while i was there.
(Click on pics to open in a new window and enlarge for detail) 🙂
With a White-faced Heron in the background (more of him in a later post!) 🙂
love.
BLob's Blog 
What an interesting bird! Sort of like a heron crossed with some weird variety of duck. Great shots, too.
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Australia seems to be quite keen on crossing ducks with other animals! – We’ve got the Duck-billed platypus for example – sadly i don’t believe there are many (any!?) near where i live.
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Great photos. I love how they stand on one leg as though practicing their yoga pose. Likelihood is, however, that the yoga pose mimics the bird!
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I’m betting the bird has been around for longer! 😉
It could just be though that they both see a physical benefit in the monopodal position?? 🙂
Just as an aside, our Aboriginal natives are often depicted standing on one leg while resting a foot against the other knee! Their culture is over 40,000 years old. maybe i’m missing out on something??
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A wonderful photo of a creature I have never seen. By the way, what type of camera did you use for this?
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Thank you Carol. He’s a rare bird indeed!
It was with my recently acquired Nikon B700 (bridge type) at a zoom = 800mm, or around 20 times. (Handheld)
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[…] catching yesterdays shots of the Spoonbill i also found a few of his fellow waterfowl enjoying the Easter weekend! […]
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What a beautiful bird. I’m not sure if I have seen one in the wild, it I have I think it would have been on vacations. I don’t know much about these birds, but I think the Cape May Zoo has a few in their aviary. I’ll have to visit again soon and take a look.
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I was very lucky to find one nesting! 🙂
She(He?) was very relaxed and posed well for my camera! Hope you get to catch one but you may need to wait for Spring, unless the zoo heats their aviary?? 😉
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