Two new papers in the recently-completed March 2017 issue of the journal Waterbirds explore the
biology and behaviour of spoonbills.
Csaba Pigniczki documents a fascinating feeding behaviour of the Eurasian Spoonbill that was presented with the problem of a large frog that did not want to be swallowed. Csaba writes of how observations showed that the spoonbill grabbed each limb, shook it in water, and broke each of them to facilitate easy swallowing.
In the second paper, Korean scientists report on hybridization between wild Black-faced and Eurasian Spoonbills in south Korea. They track the breeding of a paired male Eurasian with a female Black-faced Spoonbills over two years, and observed the nine hybrid offspring that were produced. Importantly, morphological descriptions of hybrid individuals are provided, which makes this paper very useful for field workers to keep an eye out for hybrid individuals.
Mar 28, 2017.