The ‘Winter 2022’ edition of the Audubon magazine has a very interesting article on Spoonbills and their relationship to studies on climate change.

I’ve written before on the long term study of Spoonbills started in 1989. The changes in water flow of the Everglades placed them in danger of disappearing from North America. A Google search will find a pod cast detailing 20 years of the study and how the Spoonbill are very resilient and resourceful.

This article adds new information to the previous studies.

From my own point of view it confirms what many in the Lowcountry have suspected, Spoonbills are nesting here now. While they have been around the marshes for several years, nests were built in Florida. The South Carolina DNR is now monitoring nests in the ACE Basin. The location is not released (We have an educated guess though and it’s remote, private land, and should be safe).

For the last few years we have had an unusual number of juvenile Spoonbills. We have watched them carrying sticks and twigs learning how to nest. All good news since Spoonbill and Wood Storks have lost land in Florida, and have been using the old rice fields habitat here.

These shots were taken early morning in the ACE Basin.