ML132918291

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

Matt spotted the continuing bird foraging near the shore along the northern edge of Morton Bay, where it remained for a few minutes before disappearing. I then relocated this bird a few minutes later as it perched atop a hunting blind a short distance to the west, but still along the northern edge of the bay and probably not any closer to our position roughly 800 meters to the south (as measured using Google Earth. Given that the spoonbill moved about when on this blind, I was able to see it sleeping, walking about, flapping its wings, and even making a few very short flights before we left this bird standing atop the blind after studying it for about a half hour (1:25-2:00 pm). This was a medium-sized, wading bird that was maybe half the as tall as nearby Great Blue Herons, yet it had a very different shape and a proportionately heavier body. Despite the distance at which I made my observations, it was clear that this bird had a relatively long, straight bill that has some mass basally before expanding into a conspicuously rounded, spoon-like tip that seemed to be flattened dorsoventrally. The head was small and rounded, and the neck was of medium-length for a wading bird, yet it seemed to be proportionately shorter that of a heron without the obvious s-curve. My views of the flying bird today were too brief to see much of any detail, but when I first saw this bird on 11 January I was able to see that it flew with the bill held forward, the neck outstretched, and the long legs held straight backward. I did see today when this bird flapped that the wings were rounded and relatively broad-based. The body was plump, the posture was a little more upright than horizontal, and this bird had a distinctly hunch-backed appearance that was not unlike that of a large ibis. The closed wings were broad and rounded and they appeared to cover at least most, if not al of the tail, which I never really saw clearly. The legs were at least moderately long and they seemed to be stouter in proportion to the body than those of a heron. Given the distance at which we made our observations, it was difficult to note much detail in the plumage patterns, which appeared to represent a simple combination of the whitish color of head and neck contrasting with the light pastel-pink color that appeared to characterize the back, and both the upperside and underside of the spread wings. I once thought I may have seem some darker coloration on the wingtips, but I really could not be sure about this, and even my memory that the underparts were pink may not be entirely accurate given the distance and light conditions under which my observations were made. Given the conditions, I could not even be sure if the head was feathered or not. The bill and legs were both clearly quite pale, and seemingly light gray, but I was unable to really see the finer details of the soft-part colors. I typed this description in the evening of 7 March based on my memory of the observations from the field.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D

Lens

EF400mm f/5.6L USM

ISO

320

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/8.0

Shutter speed

1/1600 sec

Dimensions

450 pixels x 321 pixels

Original file size

171.54 KB