Spoonbills at El Pinet

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Today we headed for El Pinet to see the Spoonbills which have been seen there recently. For the past week several people have been posting great photos on my Facebook Spain and UK Bird Group so I had to go and see if the birds were still there. As we arrived at El Pinet we passed Bryan and Trevor coming the other was, but they turned round and came back to say ‘hello’. The Spoonbills were in a group of about 20 on the far edge of the lagoon by the car park. A group of 5 Black tailed Godwits were also standing with their heads tucked under their wings next to one of the small islands. We chatted to Bryan and Trevor for a little while and they had seen the other large group of Godwits that we had seen on the Salinas as we drove by. They had also seen a Knot by the tower layby on the Salinas, tucked into the edge of the lagoon right next to the lay by. A couple of wardens were inside the reserve and they flushed the Spoonbills which all flew round in a big circle before returning to their original place.

After Bryan and Trevor left for a trip across the El Hondo fields, we stayed to watch the Spoonbills, one in particular, which came closer to us and allowed us to get a few photos (quite a lot actually!). As we were about to leave we noticed that a small group of the birds had moved towards us so the camera came out again! So many photos meant I spent most of the afternoon sorting them out before I could get round to writing the blog. It had been a good ‘twitch’ though as we have rarely seen so many Spoonbills as close as they were today.