Every year, the Tour du Valat sets photographic traps near colonies of Eurasian spoonbills in the Camargue, enabling us to collect several thousand photographs. By taking part in the ‘Where is Spoony?’ campaign, you can help us to analyse these photos, identify the Eurasian Spoonbills and gain a better understanding of their breeding and migration behaviour.
Monitoring Eurasian Spoonbills
Since 2008, the Tour du Valat has been running a programme to monitor Spoonbill populations in the Camargue. This monitoring consists of an annual assessment of the population of the White Spoonbill colonies and the ringing of the chicks. By fitting a white Darvic ring with 4 black letters and numbers, we can then identify them individually throughout their lives. To date, more than 24,000 observations of Eurasian Spoonbills in Europe and Africa have been made as part of this programme.
In order to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms influencing the population dynamics of the Eurasian Spoonbill in Europe, the Tour du Valat installs camera traps near breeding colonies in the Camargue. Each year, these cameras capture more than 30,000 photographs! This is a huge amount of information, which would be a long and tedious job for a single observer. What’s more, as some of the rings that appear are blurred or distant, they could easily be overlooked without several checks.
A participatory science programme
Efficient analysis of this vast amount of data is made possible by public participation in the project. « Where is Spoony ? ». By reading and identifying the rings worn by the spoonbills in the images, the survey participants enabled us to extract data from the images taken by the camera traps.
We can then identify which birds have survived the winter and which are breeding in the Camargue. Additional information such as the sex of the bird, the breeding partner, or even unusual events (such as the intrusion of predators like wild boar) can also be identified. To date, the involvement of over 6,000 volunteers has made it possible to process more than 40,000 photos.
The White Spoonbill
The Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) is a large bird, averaging 90 cm in length and weighing around 2 kg when fully grown. It takes its name from its characteristic long, black, spatula-shaped beak, which distinguishes it from all other large European waders. Its plumage is entirely white, with black legs and a yellow breast patch. The plumage of juveniles is very similar to that of adults: they can be distinguished by the black tips of their flight feathers. Spoonbills are wetland birds, preferring freshwater marshes, lagoons or estuaries close to the coastline.
In France, the Eurasian Spoonbill is considered to be near-threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s French Red List and benefits from an International Action Plan for its conservation.
