Record Eurasian Spoonbill breeding season in Norfolk

The Eurasian Spoonbill colony at the Holkham Estate in Norfolk has produced its highest number of fledged young since the species started nesting there in 2010.

Diligent fieldwork at the North Norfolk reserve revealed that a total of 90 young spoonbills fledged from the 46 nests at the colony this summer. This beats the previous record for the estate and any site in Britain, set last year, of 77 fledglings across 43 nests at Holkham.

Eurasian Spoonbills accompanied by their young are an increasingly familiar sight in North Norfolk (Nick Appleton).

Before the colony was established, Eurasian Spoonbill was absent as a British breeding bird for more than 300 years, having been driven out by large-scale drainage of wetlands and hunting in the late 1600s.

Andy Bloomfield, Senior Warden at the Holkham Estate, said that this year's breeding productivity was "pleasing to report".

When the Holkham colony first became established, there were no other breeding spoonbills in Britain but the species has since nested in Yorkshire, Suffolk and Essex. In addition, the species has recently started breeding elsewhere in Norfolk, firstly at Cley in 2022 and then this year it recolonised the Broads.