It has been suggested that in most colony-breeding birds, food availability in the feeding areas surrounding the colonies limits, and thereby regulates, population size. However, population size is also determined by adult survival, which will additionally be influenced by circumstances outside the breeding season. Most Eurasian Spoonbills Platalea leucorodia leucorodia in The Netherlands breed on the Wadden Sea barrier islands. After 30 years of exponential growth, the breeding population in the Dutch Wadden Sea area is now levelling off towards a maximum of nearly 2000 nests. For these Spoonbills, density-dependent effects on survival by the different age-classes and in the different seasons have already been demonstrated. However, the mechanisms underlying the densitydependent survival of juveniles before and after fledging remain unclear. To examine whether these density-dependent effects reflect limitations at the colony level, we compared colony growth, chick condition and reproductive success among the Wadden Sea colonies. Population growth rates from 1988 to 2015 varied widely between the 10 existing colonies, and so did the statistically predicted maximum colony sizes. Chick condition, measured for 781 chicks in six different colonies between 2011 and 2015, was lower in stable colonies than in growing colonies, although not for the very late chicks, and reproductive success tended to be lower as well. Over the longer period of 1991 to 2011, reproductive success showed a strong negative relationship with colony size. We propose that the levelling off of colony sizes in the Wadden Sea is caused by local food limitations, and suggest further research in this direction. The continuing growth of the Dutch population is now being fuelled by exponentially increasing numbers of Spoonbills breeding in the Delta area.