Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Wildlife Wednesday - Royal Spoonbill

Spoonbills have long been a source of fascination. That beak is insane - like a curved wooden spoon, black, shiny like plastic! All waders really intrigue me because of their life in the shallows burrowing in the mud/silt/sand for food, but spoonbills have always caught my eye.

I was on a roam, and I'd been stalking out a white-faced heron perched in a mangrove tree for a while. Then I got distracted by some crabs on the river bank, tiny fish swimming and then leaping from the water in a choreographed ballet (and no, I wasn't quick enough to capture that!), and then a crow flying by caught my eye. It was squawking in that 'look, look, look" way. 

I looked.

It looked like cockatoos in a tree some distance away. But they were big. So, maybe an egret. I wandered over.

A spoonbill! Head tucked under its wing, I thought asleep, but it had it's eye on me.

I spent far too long standing beneath that tree taking photos of the majestic Royal Spoonbill. I'd never seen them anywhere but on the river flats, and then only occasionally. Without that crow telling me to look, I would have walked right past this tree. It was in a yard and across the road from where I was, so I had no reason to go there, and I'd been too busy focussing on the river!

I wonder what else I miss every day?!




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