Spoon-billed sandpipers started to arrive here for their winter migration. They live in Russia on the coast of Bering sea and migrate via China and Korea down to Southeast and South asia annually during winter. That's around 7000+ km traveling each way. There are approximately 400 mature adults left in the wild.
Once arrived, it is time to play where's Waldo as there is usually only one or two spoon-billed sandpipers among thousands of local sandpipers on the salt pan at each location.
All shot with Nikon Z9+800PF+TCx2.
Great capture of a rare bird!! I always look close at my sandpiper group pictures to see if I can spot a spoon bill. Nothing so far. I think their shallow mud flat habitats have diminished due to development and other reasons. Well done!
douter wrote:
Great find, Suteetat! How'd you manage to stay with it?
Douglas
Thanks Douglas. If the birds fly off, after 5-10 minutes, they will start to fly back to the same spot again so I just sit tight and wait. Luckily there were 6-7 of us that evening so we all tried to scan all the birds as they come back to look for that one single bird in the whole flock again
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JHut wrote:
Great capture of a rare bird!! I always look close at my sandpiper group pictures to see if I can spot a spoon bill. Nothing so far. I think their shallow mud flat habitats have diminished due to development and other reasons. Well done!
Thanks. Yes, sadly much of its natural habitat are gone. Even the salt paddies where they like to stay during their winter retreats are slowly disappearing. In Thailand, efforts have been made to buy up some of the salt paddies land where the highest number of spoon billed sandpipers come to spend their winter by a few conservation organizations and lease the land
back to the locals for free to continue salt farming only so the habitat is kept for these birds. Similar efforts are being made in Korea and China where the birds stop to rest on their way to SE Asia as far as I know. The breeding ground in Kamchatka peninsula is already a highly restricted area for conservation of the birds.
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kcook11 wrote:
Very unique bird, and great documentation.
Amazing find mixed in with the thousands of others!
I did not know there existed such a bird, super cool looking bird and some great images of it. Appreciate your info and sharing of these images, thank you! Nice shooting @ 800x2 as well.
Karl
