Color-ringed Spoonbill

Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) feeding in a tidal channel of the Ria Formosa Natural Park near Faro, Algarve, Portugal on the 11th of February 2012.
The bird has been colour-ringed as a nestling in north Germany (Mellum, Niedersachsen) in June 2011 by Olaf Geiter, with whom I catched and ringed Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) near Cologne in 2003 for his dissertation about Neozoa. Its a small world...
I have been reporting ringed Spoonbills, Flamingos, Gulls, Waders and other aquatic birds here in the Algarve for over 10 years now. The birds life-historys reveal that many Individuals keep coming back, not only to the Algarve every winter, but even to the same lagoon or feeding at the same section of a tidal channel for years and years. In case of the Spoonbills, a species that has extended their breeding distribution northwards along the west coast of Europe, many birds wintering here come from the Netherlands or Germany. If you see or (better) photograph color-ringed Spoonbills, it is appreciated if you sent this observation with all the necessary details to the coordinator of the European ringing-projects of the species, Otto Overdijk, e-mail: o.overdijk AT natuurmonumenten.nl