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BIRD FACTS |
Description
The Yellow-billed Spoonbill is a large, white waterbird with a yellow face and spoon-shaped bill. The legs and feet are yellow. Breeding plumage has long wing plumes tipped with black and long breast feathers (hackles). The facial skin is edged with black in the breeding season, but yellow at other times. Young are similar to adults with some dark markings on the inner flight feathers.
Other Names
Yellow-legged Spoonbill
Size
76 - 91cm
Habitat
freshwater wetlands, dams, lagoons and swamps, and sometimes in dry pastures
Food
Feds by wading slowly in shallow waters, sweeping its bill from side to side to catch aquatic insects and their larvae.
Breeding
nests in colonies with other water birds, such as ibises and Royal Spoonbills. Nest is built in high fork of tree over water, or in among reed beds, and is a shallow, unlined platform made from sticks, rushes and reeds
Range
found across Australia in suitable habitat. Common in northern well-watered inland areas, but is less common in coastal regions
Credits:
Map is from Atlas of Living Australia website at https://biocache.ala.org.au licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Classification
| Class: | Aves | | Order: | Ciconiiformes | | Family: | Threskiornithidae | | Genus: | Platalea | | Species: | flavipes | | Common Name: | Yellow-billed Spoonbill |
Relatives in same Genus
Royal Spoonbill (P. regia)
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