Spoonbill

This species can be found on the following statutory and conservation listings and schedules.

UK Birds of Conservation Concern	Amber listed
Species of European Conservation Concern	Least Concern
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (global)	Least Concern
Schedule 1 license required (to disturb)	Yes
Birds Directive Annex 1	Yes
Listed on the Annexes of	WCA(I), WBD(I), Bern(III), Bonn(II), AEWA, CITES(II)

Spoonbill bred in southern England until the 17th century and has successfully re-colonised the UK over the course of the last decade, following on from the first successful modern-day breeding attempt in 1999 (Ogilvie et al. 2001). The main stronghold of the species is at Holkham in Norfolk where breeding first occurred in 2010 and the number of breeding pairs had risen to 28 in 2020 (Bloomfield 2021). Since the establishment of the colony at Holkham, breeding has occurred at several other sites across the UK.

UK winter population

+5150% increase (1995/96 to 2020/21)

Spoonbill is a rare breeding bird in Britain. At the time of Bird Atlas 2007–11 breeding was confirmed in two 10-km squares, in Dumfries & Galloway and in Norfolk. They are widely distributed in winter across a range of mostly coastal sites in southern Britain.

Spoonbill was formerly a scarce summer visitor, but is now an expanding breeder and can also be seen throughout the winter at some southern locations.

View a summary of recoveries in the Online Ringing Report.

Foreign locations of birds ringed or recovered in Britain & Ireland

Sample sizes are too small to report Biometrics for this species.

Feather measurements and photos on featherbase

Field Codes

2-letter: NB | 5-letter code: SPOON | Euring: 1440

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Causes of change

The re-colonisation of the UK follows a range expansion across Europe. The reasons for this are unclear although it is possible that climate change may have been a factor. In the Netherlands, it has been suggested that local population growth may have levelled off at some sites as a result of density dependent effects caused by limited food supply (Oudman et al. 2017), which may potentially be a driver of the ongoing range expansion.