This adorable sparrow-sized bird is called the spoon-billed sandpiper, and they have a unique black shovel-like beak, like a small ice cream spoon that can distinguish them from other sandpipers. Their color is completely different during the breeding season and during the non-breeding season, during which the bird exhibits a rich reddish-brown color, especially around the head, chest and back. They have different numbers of black spots on the thorax, which extend towards the abdomen and then fade to white.
During the non-breeding season , spoon-billed sandpiper feathers are a mixture of white , black and grey. The upper body is mostly grey with light stripes on the top of the head and back of the neck. The body, throat, and forehead are white in the second half of the year, usually with a white stripe on the eyes. The legs were always black, and with the cute bean eyes and fluffy feathers, I really wanted to touch them.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > foraging</h1>
Spoon-billed sandpipers feed on a variety of larvae and adult invertebrates, especially midges, mosquitoes, flies, beetles and spiders. They also feed on some plant material, including grass seeds and berries. During wintering grounds and migration, they feed on a variety of marine invertebrates, including polychaete worms and shrimp.
They will plunge their "Xiaoice ki scoops" into the water, swinging back and forth to sweep away the food; in the mud, the spoon mouth will act like a shovel, leaving the prey under the mud nowhere to hide. Imagine a little, such a plush cute bird shoveling mud, always feel a sense of contrast and cuteness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > breeding</h1>
Spoon-billed sandpipers arrive at their breeding grounds in Russia in the last days of May or early June. As soon as the males land on the ground, they will not stop occupying a piece of their favorite habitat as territory, and begin to exude charm to attract mates.
They hover low in their territory, making courtship flights and emitting repetitive vibrato and rapid wing flap alternating sounds. Once the male and female are paired, the male stops exuding its charm. The couple then skips the love affair and chooses a nesting site in the territory, where the female lays a nest of about 2-4 eggs in a shallow tundra depression.
After spawning, both couples participate in the incubation, usually in shifts lasting half a day, with the young hatching within 19 to 23 days. After hatching, the young birds leave the nest within a day and immediately begin feeding.
The males take them out of their nests and tend them alone until they grow feathers after about 20 days. What about females? Females leave shortly after hatching and begin migrating south. When the young birds reach full wings, the males will also leave. After a few weeks of solitude, these young birds migrate south on their own.
It's really different from the appearance, an unexpectedly independent species.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > migration and activity</h1>
Spoon-billed sandpiper breeds southward on the Bering Sea coast of the Chukotsk Peninsula and the Kamchatka Peninsula in northeastern Russia. Winters in Russia are unusually cold, and they migrate along the Pacific coasts of Russia, Japan, North and South Korea, as well as China, to the main wintering grounds of Southeast Asia. During their migration, they rely heavily on the Intertidal Zone of the Yellow Sea and will stop from time to time to forage, which is an important time for bird watchers and spoon-billed sandpipers.
Most of the spoon-billed sandpiper winters off the coast of Myanmar and Bangladesh, and is occasionally found off the coast of southern China, Thailand and Vietnam.
During the breeding season, spoon-billed sandpipers live in coastal tundra, often close to large coastal lagoons or bays. In these areas, they nest in bilberry plants on gravel mouths with sparse vegetation, or in lowland tundras with denser vegetation dominated by sedges, mosses and dwarf willows. They feed along lakeshores, shallow ponds and moist tundra meadows.
During migration and winter, spoon-billed sandpipers occupy coastal waters, especially mudflats outside tidal estuaries, as they do not require long-term settlement and are convenient for foraging.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > critically endangered</h1>
Few birds have gone extinct as quickly as the spoon-billed sandpiper.
In the 1970s, researchers estimated between 2,000 and 2,800 pairs of wild birds. By 2005, however, that number had fallen by more than 87 percent to 350 to 380 pairs. Today, the number of adult birds that can be bred is only about 287-300 pairs. Most researchers believe that there are two reasons for the decline in the population of spoon-billed sandpipers: the disappearance of migratory stopover habitats, especially in the Yellow Sea region, and hunting in wintering grounds.
At least half of the world's spoon-billed sandpipers spend the winter in Myanmar's Martaban Bay, where netting hunting is the norm. These nets often capture and kill spoon-billed sandpipers. Hunting, carried out by Myanmar's poorest people, is now considered the biggest direct threat to the species.
Fortunately, the various countries on the migration of spoon-billed sandpipers have worked together to ensure that the spoon-billed sandpiper population does not decline. At present, spoon-billed sandpipers have begun to be tried to be captive, and they have successfully bred young birds; their migration season is also dedicated to ensuring that there are no illegal hunting along the way.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" > postscript</h1>
The spoon-billed sandpiper is the rarest breeding coastal bird in the world and one of the rarest species in the Arctic. It is considered a flagship species, a symbol of life along the entire flight path, and represents the current state of conservation along the flight path that Russia shares with Alaska and Canada.
Conservation efforts to protect this species will benefit the large number of species along the way, as well as the livelihoods of locals living in coastal areas.