The solitary spoonbill has visited Jersey for the past seven years, feeding in the gulleys around La Rocque and roosting offshore on a favourite rock perch at Icho Tower.
Bird watcher Alan Gicquel has tracked its movements since it first turned up in the Island and he was anxious for its safety after storms with force-10 winds gusting up to 67 mph battered the Island, driving many seabirds to seek safer roosts, last week.
However, he found the spoonbill, around high-tide time, taking refuge along with other seabirds in a waterlogged meadow in Grouville, close to Happy Hens egg farm.
Mr Gicquel said he believed it was the first time that the spoonbill had been spotted inland.
‘I have taken some lovely pictures of it over the years, usually in the gulleys at La Rocque, where it normally goes to feed at low water,’ he said.
‘At every high water it goes out to Icho Tower and depending on the weather it sits in the same spot and you can see it from the land with binoculars or a telescope.’
Spoonbills are tall white waterbirds with elongated spatulate black bills and long black legs.
On average only 80 spoonbills are known to overwinter in the UK, where the RSPB says there are only four breeding pairs. They have a global distribution, and can be found on every continent except Antarctica.
Mr Gicquel said the sex of the bird was unknown and it could come from anywhere in western Europe but most likely it originated from the area between Holland and south Brittany.
‘We don’t know if it is a “he” or a “she” and we don’t know where it comes from, but it usually turns up in November and goes away again in February,’ he said.
‘That is what it has done, every year for the past seven years, and I always record it and take photographs.’
