Dutch Spoonbills in northern Morocco in 2011 and again in 2013 (1 Viewer)

Two Eurasian Spoonbills colour-ringed in the Netherlands and seen separately in the wetlands of northern Morocco (Smir lagoon and Oued Martil respectively) in 2011. This month, they were seen and photographed together at Oued Martil. One of the bird is over 20-year old. You can see photographs and a video of the spoonbills in the blog of Moroccan birds.

and again in 2015

The Spoonbill that was ringed as a nestling at Terschelling on 08 June 1993 (22.5 years-old now) was seen again this January in northern Morocco. This time it was found at Oued el Maleh which is close to other wetlands where we saw it in previous years.

The benefit of wintering north of the Sahara is shown in this Open Access paper published this month:

Lok, T., Overdijk, O., & Piersma, T. (2015). The cost of migration: spoonbills suffer higher mortality during trans-Saharan spring migrations only. Biology Letters 11(1): 20140944. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0944

Great records Mo, we have at least one of the Dutch Spoonbills wintering on the estuary here in North Devon. We have had Spoonbills wintering here every year since 1988.
I first saw Spoonbills on the island of Texel in 1968!