White Spoonbill X Black-faced Spoonbill? China (1 Viewer)

[xuky.summer]

Recently, some white spoonbills spent the winter here (qingdao, Shandong province ). I found that some black areas on their faces seemed to be larger than normal, between white spoonbills and black-faced spoonbills. I know that these two species have crossed on the island of Dalian, and it is said that the offspring spread a lot. Then these will be hybrids? A few days ago, there were two black faced spoonbills here. This winter is really warm.
Thank you!

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi Xuky , while i have never seen blackfaced spoonbill I have seen eurasian spoonbill both in Europe and China. I think the amount of naked skin in the face of these birds is large, but still in range for a first winter eurasian spoonbill.
Here for comparison (but they are slightly younger birds than yours)

https://www.oiseaux.net/photos/rene.dumoulin/images/spatule.blanche.redu.2g.jpg

https://c7.alamy.com/comp/M8WMRG/juveniele-lepelaar-bedelende-om-voedsel-juvenile-eurasian-spoonbill-M8WMRG.jpg

Also your bird seems to show a yellowish nacked patch going down the throat (snot so good to see) , which would fit to Eurasian spoonbill. Hybrids don´t seem to show this at such an extent, at least according to the fotos in the few papers I know (Tiunov 2021 and Kwon et al 2017).

So I anm not 100 % sure but would say the photos show an Eurasian spoonbill.

 

[xuky.summer]

Thank you Joern!