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Spoonbills in record numbers

The wetlands of Tainan County still boast the world's largest number of black-faced spoonbills, with a total of 706 of the rare migratory birds arriving here for the winter as of yesterday.

A total of 598 black-faced spoonbills have been sighted in the area around the mouth of the Tsengwen River and surrounding Chiku wetlands so far this year, while another 108 have been sighted near the Sitsao wetlands in Tainan City, bringing the total to 706, said the Tainan Black-faced Spoonbills Conservation Association.

The bird count is the highest in three years, larger than both the 705 recorded late last year and the 601 posted at the end of 2001. A total of 1,069 of the rare birds were counted in a global population survey conducted in January, conservationists from the association said.

The conservationists said they had worried that the number of arrivals might decline substantially this year due to a large number of spoonbill deaths that occurred in Taiwan late last year and early this year because of botulism.

However, yesterday's figure proved that Tainan remains the most popular transit habitat for black-faced spoonbills despite the botulism scare.

Botulism caused the death of 73 birds between late last year and early this year. According to wild bird experts, the reproduction rate of the black-faced spoonbill ranges from 8 percent to 12 percent per year. Based on these figures, the maximum number of arrivals this year had been predicted at around 700, the conservationists said.

A total of 17 black-faced spoonbills had contracted botulism but were treated by veterinary surgeons in Tainan and then released back into the wild earlier this year. Of these birds, 15 returned to Tainan again late this year, while one was spotted in Japan, according to the bird watchers. The other bird remained unaccounted for, they said.

Black-faced spoonbills migrate from North Asia to the warm wetlands of Taiwan and other Asian lower-latitude countries between late September and early December every year to spend the winter and avoid the cold of their northern breeding grounds. The birds then return north in around April or May of the following year.

The Tainan wetlands are not just an ideal habitat for black-faced spoonbills. There are about 100 other species of bird staying in the Tsengwen River area, Chiku and Sitsao, making these southern wetlands a haven for migratory birds.
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