Rare migratory birds sighted flying over Pampanga islet

By: Lu-Ann Fuentes-Bajarias - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:24 AM January 15, 2019

SURPRISE VISITORS Three black-faced spoonbills fly over Bangkung Malapad islet in Sasmuan town, Pampanga province, on Sunday, a once-in-a-century sighting that has become a cause for celebration among local bird watchers. —PHOTO COURTESY OF DON GEOFF TABARANZA/WILD BIRD PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE PHILIPPINES

Three globally endangered black-faced spoonbills (Platalea minor) were seen flying over Bangkung Malapad islet in Sasmuan town, Pampanga province, on Jan. 12, more than 100 years after its last recorded sighting in Manila Bay.

The bird species is a rare migrant in the Philippines, which is within its confirmed wintering range along with coastal areas in China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.

 “Philippine sightings of the black-faced spoonbill in the past decade have relied on citizen science,” said Arne Jensen, an associate expert of Wetlands International and records committee chair of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP).

These are limited from one to three reports from Puerto Princesa City in Palawan province; Candaba in Pampanga; Bicol River Estuary; Olango Island in Cebu province; and Batan Island in Batanes province, according to the WBCP and the International Black-faced Spoonbill Working Group of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership.

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Taiwan hosts largest wintering population of black-faced spoonbills

2017/03/28 14:06:18

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) Taiwan recorded the world's largest wintering population of black-faced spoonbills this year, with 2,601 birds recorded, the Forestry Bureau under the Council of Agriculture said Tuesday.

This year's figure marks 541 more than last year, or a world record high increase, and it is the third consecutive year in which the number has exceeded 2,000, the bureau said, citing the results of the International Black-faced Spoonbill Census 2017 conducted Jan. 14-15.

The Taiwan section of the census was conducted at 51 sites in Taiwan by the Wild Bird Society of the Republic of China, along with 26 wild bird groups around the country, according to the bureau.

The black-faced spoonbill is classified as a globally endangered species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List.

A total of 3,941 birds were recorded in this year's global census, including 2,601 in Taiwan, or 66 percent of the global total. The global population of the bird was 585 fewer than last year.

About 98.8 percent of the black-faced spoonbills in Taiwan were recorded in wetlands, fish ponds, saltwater ponds and lagoons in coastal areas of Tainan and Chiayi in southwestern Taiwan, according to the bureau.

The bureau said it has authorized the Wild Bird Society to carry out the survey in Taiwan since September 2015 in order to monitor the distribution of the birds in Taiwan and evaluate the effectiveness of the existing wild bird conservation measures.

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Rare, Black-faced Spoonbills spotted in Candaba swamp

The birds were supposed to be in Hong Kong or the Chinese mainland. But here they were in Candaba, Pampanga, their long black spoon-shaped bills unmistakaeable, as well as their faces covered in black skin instead of avian feathers: the Black-faced Spoonbills. Two of them. 

Wild Bird Club of the Philippines (WBCP) members Linda Gocon and Brian Ellis spotted the two Black-faced Spoonbills in Candaba on December 19, as they were showing around a group of expatriate missionaries the birds of Candaba. They noticed two larger birds that were mixed among a faraway flock of smaller Black-winged Stilts. Here, unmistakeably, were the Spoonbills.

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