The Eurasian spoonbill or common spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) is a wading bird of the ibis and spoonbill family Threskiornithidae. 

They are a very rare breeding bird in this country, preferring the warmer climate of Eastern Europe including Greece and Yugoslavia. Very few of them spend the winter in Western Europe. Today there are only about twelve breeding pairs in the United Kingdom. A pair bred for the first time in 2017 at the RSPB reserve Fairburn Ings and fledged three chicks. In 2018 a new pair laid four eggs on the reserve at Fairburn around the 6th June, all four chicks fledged during the third week in July.

As the name suggests the Spoonbill is equipped with a flattened, broad, black, yellow tipped long bill. It is a bird of the marshes and quite at home in the shallow waters here at Fairburn and RSPB Blacktoft Sands. 

They nest in trees and make a shallow platform of small twigs and tree branches, very similar to that of an Ospreys nest. They usually nest in colonies but the only ‘resident’ pair of Spoonbills on the reserve at Fairburn seems quite content to be surrounded by Little Egret and Grey Heron nests. 

Spoonbills when feeding hold their bill slightly open and partially submerged; they sweep it from side to side through the water hoping to catch fish, molluscs and crustaceans.