Some bird names, including “spoonbill”, are so wonderfully descriptive they can hardly be bettered. Yet this species used to be known as the shoveler, leading to confusion with the duck of the same name. Both have large, spatulate bills, but they feed in a very different manner.
I encountered shovelers and spoonbills on a whistlestop tour of Somerset this month, after a cold spell brought in thousands of waterbirds from the north and east. We saw clouds of lapwings, zigzagging across the sky as if being given electric shocks; golden plovers, floating overhead on long, pointed wings; and 100,000 starlings performing their nightly aerobatics over the Avalon Marshes.
But it was the spoonbills that stayed in my memory. As we arrived at the new Steart Marshes reserve, our timing could hardly have been better. Approaching the hide, we noticed flocks of ducks rising into the grey December sky, accompanied by three large white birds. Around here, that usually means great white egrets, but as they landed and began to sweep their bills from side to side, we realised their true identity. What these exotic creatures were doing here at this time of year I’m not sure, but they certainly made my day.
• The Wren: A Biography by Stephen Moss is available at the Guardian Bookshop.
