Black-faced Spoonbill

Platalea minor

Endangered. Sweeps a spoon-shaped bill through shallows to scoop fish. The whole species winters at a handful of sites.

Population: ~3,000–5,100 mature individuals (roughly 6,000–7,100 total birds per 2022–2025 international censuses: 6,162 in 2022, 7,081 in 2025), recovered from a low of only ~288 counted in 1988–1990
Habitat: Coastal intertidal mudflats and shallow wetlands; breeds on small, isolated rocky offshore islands; in the non-breeding season also uses artificial wetlands such as aquaculture ponds, fishponds, and salt pans
Fun fact: The Black-faced Spoonbill is the smallest and most range-restricted of the world's six spoonbill species, and its population fell to only ~288 birds in 1988-1990 before recovering to over 7,000 today; one ringed individual, first banded as a chick in 1995, is still being resighted in Hong Kong decades later.
Range: Breeds on a small number of islands off North Korea and South Korea (including the DMZ area, its most successful breeding site), in Liaoning Province (NE China), and Russia's South Primorye region; winters along the coasts of southern China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan (the population stronghold), Vietnam (Red River delta), and Japan (Kyushu, Okinawa), with occasional records from Jeju (South Korea), Thailand, and the Philippines
Diet: Fish (notably largescale mullet on the Taiwan wintering grounds) and aquatic invertebrates such as shrimp, caught by wading through shallow water and sweeping the spatulate bill side-to-side (tactile, often crepuscular feeding)
Size: 0.76 m
Wingspan: 1.27 m
Lifespan: 25 years

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