“SPOONBILLS!” Someone whispers excitedly as we tentatively cling on to our cameras and binoculars, and slowly make our way as soundlessly as we can to the lake glimmering in the afternoon light.
The Aogu wetlands stretch wide before us. Dry grasses rustle in the wind and up ahead, a group of congregating waders, including herons and egrets, are searching for food. And among them, the elusive Black-faced Spoonbills.
It’s almost a surreal experience catching sight of the strange-looking bird. The Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor) is a large wading bird with a distinctively spoon-like shaped bill, sometimes thought to resemble a pipa — a Chinese musical instrument.
“These are very rare and it’s even rarer that we can get as close as this,” murmurs our guide Greg Guh, as we peer through our binoculars at the white wading birds a few hundred metres ahead, standing motionless on long black legs.
It’s already day three of what’s already been an interesting birding tour here in Taiwan.
A programme organised by Ecotourism Taiwan and backed by Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s Southwest Coast National Scenic Area director Chen-Neng Hsu, I’m in the company of avitourism operators, birdwatchers and journalists from Japan, Korea, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
From traversing up mountainous roads to catch a glimpse of Taiwan’s famed Swinhoe and Mikado Pheasants, we’re back down at the wetlands situated off Highway 17, southwest of Taiwan.
We walk through a rough track leading to an embankment — an easy viewing spot to view these elusive but skittish birds. The excitement in the air is palpable because no one has been this close to a spoonbill before.
“Oh my god! They’re amazing!” someone whispers loudly. A moment later, I sheepishly realise I said that. No one pays attention however. They’re too busy trying to aim their cameras at the scene ahead without startling the birds.
Professional Thai tour-guide Wittawat Noul-in, who is part of our entourage, isn’t satisfied with the distance and decides to give in to his excitement.
Clutching his camera close to his chest, he crouches down and literally wriggles his way closer to the birds. Soon, there’s a sea of people following suit, crawling through the tall grasses to get closer to the dozen or so birds feeding nonchalantly not too far away. These are birdwatchers in their element. Forget dignity, creaky joints or the fact that we’re close to eating sand as we imitate giant slugs — the birds come first!
The spoonbills seem unfazed by the attention. They walk around with their distinctive bills thrust into the water in search for food. Then, bodies twisting, they swing their heads from side to side, using their half-open bills to grasp and gulp down their food. The birds move rhythmically. It’s no wonder that some Taiwanese birdwatchers have nicknamed these creatures “black-faced dancers”.
THE ELUSIVE SPOONBILLS
So what makes these birds so special? And why did a motley group of birdwatchers abandon all sense of decorum to crawl over to the side of the embankment to get a better look at these strange looking birds?
The Black-faced Spoonbill is the smallest and rarest of the six Platalea species. It’s a wader and with only a few thousand individuals surviving in the world, it’s an endangered species. The dark, bare-patched area in front of the eyes of this spoonbill, along with its long black bill that expands at the tip and shaped like a “spoon”, gives this bird its unique features.
Typically spotted in small parties, Black-faced Spoonbills stride through shallow waters in muddy river mouths, lagoons and pools, sweeping partly open bills, sifting through water and silt to catch small fish and invertebrates such as prawns and shrimps. Its unique foraging behaviour has led local fishermen to nickname the bird “La-Buei”.
Yet most of the East Asian coast is threatened by high human populations and associated agricultural and industrial activities, resulting in habitat destruction and pollution. And this doesn’t bode well for the spoonbills.
With such a small global population, they are inherently vulnerable to extinction. Their survival is strongly dependent upon the continued preservation and security of their main breeding grounds, availability of unpolluted coastal wetlands abundant with food in their known wintering range, and avoidance of potentially deadly diseases or infections.
According to World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) — one of the world’s largest conservation organisations — the Black-faced Spoonbill is only found in East Asia and, with an estimated world population of just 3,941 individuals, is classified as a globally “endangered” species under the IUCN’s Red List. Each year only 30 or so pairs are known to breed.
“They’re highly endangered,” explains Guh, before adding that in 1990 there were about 300 Black-faced Spoonbills in the world, with less than 150 of them coming to winter in Taiwan.
CONSERVING THE SPOONBILL
According to Dr Martin Williams in his article published in National Wildlife Federation about spoonbills, alarm bells sounding the imminent extinction of these birds were raised when British birdwatcher, Peter Kennerley, began compiling information on the spoonbill’s status throughout northern Asia.
He soon discovered that the Black-faced spoonbill was close to extinction, estimating that there were no more than 288 of this species left in the world, whereby 90 per cent of which wintered at three sites — Vietnam’s Red River Delta, the Chiku Wetlands by the Tseng-wen river estuary in Taiwan, and Deep Bay in Hong Kong.
Kennerley’s findings were published in 1989 and spurred an almost overnight interest in spoonbills in these three countries, including Taiwan, thus proving a turning point for the status of these birds.
Respected Taiwan ornithologist Yi-Tsung Weng also initiated a monthly census of the spoonbills in 1991, resulting in the first accurate data on the Black-faced Spoonbill numbers in the Chiku wetlands.
As a result of the census, the Council of Agriculture listed the spoonbill as an endangered species to be protected under the Wildlife Conservation Law, and commissioned the Wild Bird Society of Tainan as well as a local university to undertake a three-year survey of the Black-faced spoonbills in Taiwan.
In Nov 1, 2002, the Council of Agriculture designated 300 hectares of the Tseng-wen River estuary as a Black-faced
Spoonbill Reserve.
The remainder 334 hectares of fish ponds on the east side were also made a major wildlife habitat. This will ensure that the spoonbills have a safe home while wintering in Taiwan.
By the early 2000s, population of the birds had doubled, benefiting from protective measures taken to conserve these birds. Spoonbills in Taiwan soon began spreading their wings from Chiku to other sites in the country.
According to WWF, their worldwide population currently stands at 3,941, of which 2,601 wintered in Taiwan, accounting for 66 per cent of the global total and ranking first in the world for the largest wintering population of spoonbills!
SPREADING THE MESSAGE
A day later, we head out to the Black-faced Spoonbill Ecology Exhibition Hall located at the Spoonbill Reserve in Tainan, Taiwan by the Tseng-wen river estuary.
Colourful tiles featuring spoonbills decorate the floor as we walk towards the sprawling complex that houses information about the bird species.
Larger than life images of this wader dot the periphery and it’s evident that the spoonbill is definitely Taiwan’s superstar and the country’s pride. Who doesn’t love a good story about a wildlife being saved from the brink of extinction?
Extending out onto the lagoon overlooking the estuary, the 24-hour exhibition hall offers in-depth insights about the habits and habitat of the spoonbills. There’s so much to learn about these birds.
The exhibition area is divided into three parts — the history of the spoonbills, Taiwan’s wetlands ecology and the conservation movement that drives the protection of these birds. There’s also a multimedia room that plays spoonbill and other wetland ecology-related videos.
Just a few days before, at the welcoming dinner organised by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s Southwest Coast National Scenic Area Administration, Hsu urged us not to miss the spoonbills and the thousands of other waders that congregate around the abundant natural resources in the estuary wetlands along the flat western coastline of Taiwan. We didn’t disappoint him and ourselves.
As my fellow writer (and travel partner) from the Philippines, Lu-Ann Fuentes, and I try out the spoonbill headgear for a lark at the Exhibition Hall, we’re reminded once again of the celebrity birds of Taiwan that we encountered on the mudflats of Aogu.
Despite the frantic activity of our writhing on the ground, fever-pitched whispers and whirrs of cameras, the Black-faced Spoonbills continued to forage peacefully in the waters by the embankment. Some stood still, tucking their heads behind their feathers and promptly fell asleep. It’s just as well. After all, for these migrating birds, there’s nowhere else safer for them than in Taiwan, their second home.
Black-faced Spoonbill
Scientific name: Platalea minor
Description: A large, white, striking bird with a black face and bill, and black legs. The bill is the most distinctive feature, being wider at the tip than in the middle, with a flattened end like a paddle or a spoon. The long legs are also flattened, to minimise water resistance when the bird walks through the water.
Location: This bird is restricted to coastal East Asia.
Food: Spoonbills forage by sweeping their bills from side to side in mud or water. There’s no cutting edge on the bill, but it has hundreds of tiny sensory pits that detect movement and prey and is highly adapted for feeding by sense of touch.
Special Feature: The famous bill can open surprisingly wide. This allows the bird to swallow large prey items, which are stored in a gizzard. In the spoonbill the muscles of the gizzard pouch functions rather as a digestive sack.
Status: Once classified as “critically endangered”, numbers of Black-faced Spoonbills recovered in the 1990s and now they’re considered merely “endangered”although they remain one of the rarest birds on the planet.