- Platalea minor
Description
Identification:
76 cm. Smallish, white spoonbill with blackish bill and face.
Similar species:
Eurasian Spoonbill P. leucorodia is larger, has yellow tip to bill and white face.
Range & population:
Platalea minor breeds on islets off the west coast of North Korea and South Korea, and Liaoning province in mainland China. Birds have been reported in the Tumen estuary of Russia, but breeding has not been proven. The three major wintering sites are the Tsengwen estuary of Taiwan (China) (562 individuals), the Deep Bay area of Hong Kong (China) (179 individuals), and the Red River delta, Vietnam (65 individuals). It also winters in Cheju, South Korea, Kyushu and Okinawa, Japan, and Yancheng and Hainan, China, and there are recent records from Thailand, the Philippines and Macau (China). A minimum of 1069 individuals were counted by the 2003 International Black-faced Spoonbill Census, 10% more than in 2002.
Ecology:
It breeds in mixed colonies on small islands. Breeding success is low. It winters on tidal mudflats. Satellite tracking has shown that birds wintering in Hong Kong and Taiwan migrate along the coast of eastern China to northern Jiangsu, then over the Yellow Sea to the Korean peninsula.
Identification
Photographed in Japan.
