During November 2007–April 2008 BCST is undertaking monitoring of Spoon-billed Sandpipers in the Inner Gulf, between Chonburi and Phetchaburi. The objective is to monitor numbers and distribution throughout the winter period, and also to collect detailed information on ecology, behaviour and habitat use. The survey is being conducted jointly by shorebird researcher Somchai Nimnuan of King Mongkut’s University of Technology, and champion Spoon-billed Sandpiper finder Suchart Daengphayon from Khok Kham Conservation Club.
The Thai Inner Gulf is the most regularly used, and best-known Spoon-billed Sandpiper wintering site in Asia, with at least 10–20 birds present every winter. Besides the two well-known sites, Khok Kham and , single individuals were found at two additional, new, sites in December 2006, during the International Spoon-billed Sandpiper Workshop hosted by BCST and the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources. Already, in November 2007, the two BCST researchers have found a further, previously undiscovered, site holding a single bird, with other birds at previously known sites, with at least 11 or 12 Spoon-billed Sandpipers so far known to be present.
Most Spoon-billed Sandpiper sightings have been on out-of-use salt pans, which hold the shallow water favoured by this species for feeding. But birds disappear from known salt-pan haunts for long periods, and we need to know the extent to which other habitats are used by Spoon-billed Sandpipers for feeding and roosting, as well as whether there are any disturbance factors that may affect the birds’ survival.
The Spoon-billed Sandpiper, which breeds only in the Chukotsk Peninsula of NE Russia, is one of the most threatened birds in the world. It has declined 80–90% in the past twenty years and the world population is thought to be less than 300 pairs.
Related information: http://www.birdlife.org/news/pr/2007/10/spoon_billed_sandpiper.html
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