IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

Van Gils et al. (2020) refer to a shrill, ascending ‘whoeat…whoeatt’ in winter and a short ‘puree’, ‘preep’ or shrill ‘wheet’ in flight.

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE

All records are from the Deep Bay area where birds forage mainly on the intertidal mudflats and roost inland at high tide, primarily at Mai Po NR, though occasionally on drained fish ponds. During spring they generally associate with Red-necked Stints, whereas the very few winter records have involved a single bird in the wintering flock of Dunlin and Kentish Plover.

OCCURRENCE

Spoon-billed Sandpiper, the most charismatic wader on the HK List, is generally recorded on spring passage though there are a handful of records during autumn and winter (Figure 1).

The earliest spring record appears to be a bird that was present during 8-23 March 2012, as there were no records the winter immediately prior. Main spring passage occurs during the first three weeks of April and has been recorded until 8 June. The highest count is of 13 birds on 3 April 2005 though in general no more than three birds are recorded in a day. Based on plumage characteristics of birds observed, the number of individuals was calculated to be 16 during spring 1990 and 12 in 1998. In addition, Herklots (1967) reported a record of about 12 on 23 April 1961; however, there is no documentation of this in HKBWS files.

In contrast, there are very few records in the second half of the year. A total of six autumn records have occurred from 6 August to 25 October. Single presumed wintering birds have been noted from 11 November to 5 February in seven winter periods, though in only two this century.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper appears to have decreased this century, which would not be surprising given that it is listed as Critically Endangered by BirdLife International (2023). In the period from 1999 to 2020 there were four years in which there were only one or two spring records, while in 2002 there were none. The previous year in which no birds were recorded on spring passage was 1983, a time when there was very limited access to the intertidal mudflats and Mai Po Nature Reserve, with its high tide roost area, was not yet established.

The first record of Spoon-billed Sandpiper in Hong Kong is that of Walker (1958), who had two at Mai Po on 11 May 1957. Macfarlane and Macdonald (1966) stated that up to 1963 there were eleven records, all in Deep Bay, involving one to three birds between 17 April and 30 May and 29 September to 6 October.

BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET

Cha and Young (1991) described food items of this species based on one faecal sample; these were polychaete worms and micro gastropods. Forages and roosts with other small waders.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS 

Monotypic. Breeds near the coast of the Chukotsky peninsula south to north Kamchatka, and winters coastally from south China through Indochina to Bangladesh south to Sri Lanka, Singapore and Philippines (Van Gils et al. 2020). In China a migrant along the east and south coasts, including Taiwan, and a winter visitor to the south coast including Hainan (Liu and Chen 2020).

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: CRITICALLY ENDANGERED. Population decreasing by an estimated 8% annual reduction due to habitat loss in its breeding, passage and wintering grounds, disturbance, pollution, climate change and, in particular, the effects of indiscriminate shorebird hunting.