The black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor) has a long spoon-shaped bill, a long neck, and long legs too. It is a wader, belonging to the genus Plataleinae (spoonbills) of the Threskiornithidae or ibis family in the order Ciconiiformes, and its range is limited to coastal areas of east Asia. The bird's breeding grounds are in northeastern China and northern Korea, and its migration takes it south via Chong-ming Island in the Yangtze River delta to spend the winter in wetlands south of the Yangtze, in areas such as Zhejiang Province, Guizhou Province, Poyang Lake, Hong Kong, Hainan Island, Vietnam and Taiwan. Stray birds are also occasionally seen in southern Korea and Japan.

The area around the Tsengwen River estuary is the black-faced spoonbill's most important wintering ground. （photo by Cheng Yuan-ching）

Black-faced spoonbills love Taiwan

Six years ago Peter R. Kennerley, an officer of the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society, published a survey of the numbers of black-faced spoonbills. The survey drew on worldwide sightings over the previous two years to describe the species' distribution and reveal the crisis which it faces.

Kennerley gave the following figures for the population of black-faced spoonbills: 50 birds in Hong Kong, 62 in Vietnam, five in South Korea, six in Japan, about 15 in China as a whole (wetlands and Poyang Lake) and 150 birds at the Tsengwen River estuary in Taiwan, giving a total world population of only some 280.

It was only after this report was published that we realized just how piteously few birds survive of this species, which we had previously thought to be widely distributed. Initially, for fear of arousing the interest of hunters and exposing the birds to unnecessary disturbance, we agreed not to publicize the news, but merely stepped up our tracking, observation and recording of the flocks of black-faced spoonbill wintering in the Tsengwen River estuary.

But the building of Tainan County's proposed Chiku industrial Zone is drawing ever nearer, and the publication of the environmental impact study for the project made us realize that we could no longer keep the news secret. We have to let the public know that the Tsengwen estuary provides a habitat for a bird species which is on the verge of extinction, and that this species--the black-faced spoonbill--will soon be left without a home.

Black-faced spoonbills are not voracious feeders, and so are even more needful of protection.

A holiday favorite--the Tsengwen estuary

In fact, the presence of black-faced spoonbills in the Tsengwen River estuary is nothing new. They were already resting on sand banks near the river mouth at least twenty years ago. One lady from Chiku Rural Township who farms oysters in the estuary says that this flock of black-faced birds has been coming here for as long as twenty or thirty years. She also says that they do not make their appearance each year until after White Dew (the 15th of the 24 Solar Terms, around 8 September by the Western calendar), and that in spring, yellow feathers grow on their heads and necks.

Looking further back into history, on November 1,1893 the British ornithologist John de La Touche, who had come to Taiwan to collect information on local bird species, was traveling around Tainan, and from a boat viewed from a distance the coast near Anping. He recorded: "... we saw a good many shore-birds on the mud-flats, and a large flock of white birds in the distance like Spoonbills, but we were too far off to be sure. "White spoonbills and black-faced spoonbills are very similar in shape and are almost impossible to distinguish when seen from afar. But as recorded sightings of white spoonbills in Taiwan are extremely rare, the birds La Touche observed may very well have been black-faced spoonbills.

The Japanese ornithologist Tetsukichi Kazano, who worked at the Tainan Museum under the Japanese occupation, once wrote to Yoshimaro Yamashina, the Grand Old Man of Japanese ornithology, describing how every year from 1925 to 1938 he had observed 50 or more black-faced spoonbills settled on the beach near Anping harbor. Thus strictly speaking the birds are the real masters of this place. But as mankind greedily advances, they will soon be left with no peaceful and safe place to live.

The banks and shoals of the Tsengwen estuary, built up by the accretion of silt over thousands of years, are rich in organic matter and bottomdwelling organisms, and the estuary's broad intertidal zone, with large-scale aquaculture nearby, provides a safe environment with abundant food, which attracts enormous numbers of migratory birds to rest or overwinter here.

Apart from black-faced spoonbills, at this location one can observe as many as two to three thousand birds, including birds of the Anatidae or duck family (mainly green-winged teal, Eurasian widgeon and northern shovelers), the Charadriidae or plover family, the Laridae or gull family (including the rare Caspian tern, the slaty-backed gull and the herring gull), raptors (such as short-earedowls, black kite, marsh harriers, osprey and common kestrel), and other rare birds such as Chinese merganser, black stork and white stork.

Quite clearly, this place is an important waystation for migratory birds. It is a valuable natural classroom which should be passed on to later generations, and which needs to be carefully preserved and protected.

When disturbed, a group of black-faced spoonbills will all lift their heads and look in the direction the sound came from.

Placid, slow feeders

When wintering in the Tsengwen River estuary, the flocks of black-faced spoonbills spend most of the daytime resting or sleeping, and unless disturbed will rarely move or take to the air. To feed they split up into small groups which fly one after another to their feeding grounds, which are mainly the fish farms of Chiku and Ssutsao. The birds look for food largely in abandoned fish ponds or ponds where the water has been pumped out to a shallow depth, and they mostly eat tilapia (a genus of mouthbrooding freshwater fish widely farmed in Taiwan).

Observation shows that the black-faced spoonbill is not a voracious feeder. The birds feed standing in water up to about their knees, pushing their spoon-like bills forward through the water, twisting to left and right in an "S" pattern. When the tip of a bird's bill touches a fish or other food in the water, it swiftly snaps shut its bill over its prey and swallows it. But often the birds fail to grip the fish firmly enough, so that it wriggles free and escapes, or is snatched away by one of the little or great egrets which follow the spoonbills as they feed.

Is the degeneration in the black-faced spoonbill's feeding ability a major reason for the birds' prolonging their resting periods (to save energy), and for the gradual decline in their numbers. which has brought them to the brink of extinction? This really is a question which biologists should investigate thoroughly.

The hard-won joys of bird photography

Photographing the black-faced spoonbill is arduous work. To avoid disturbing the birds, one must set up a hide in their habitat. Crouching in the camouflaged tent or wading through the black fetid mud with the cold seawater chilling one to the bone, exposed to the force of the bitter northeast wind, is something which is hard to describe with mere words to someone who has not experienced it himself.

Photographing the birds in their feeding grounds presents a different kind of challenge, as the fish farms are spread across an area of many thousands of hectares. One has no choice but to first spend long periods observing the direction in which they fly and the places they land when looking for food, and then look for traces of their presence in the feeding areas (such as footprints, fallen feathers, etc.). When one has found a fish pond at which the birds might settle, one can set up a wooden hide (the northeasterly wind is so strong at this time of year that a tent is not suitable). One then slips into the hide at dawn, and does not emerge to return home until sunset.

This long waiting is all in the hope that a group of black-faced spoonbills will visit the pond. But because their feeding grounds cover such a large area, the chances of them really coming are tiny. And if one does have the good luck to see them, more often than not the weather is hazy, so that the results are not ideal. But when once in a while a picture does come out well, it is enough to make one jump for joy.

"Eternity captured in an instant"--the "frozen" effect of a clear, beautiful and natural wildlife picture caught just at the right moment can move the soul of the viewer in a way which is not possible when birdwatching in the wild. This is the principle which I keep in mind when photographing wild birds, for if we are to arouse public attention and concern for the black-faced spoonbill and its precarious fate, such an approach is essential. And especially since black-faced spoonbills have been killed and injured in shooting incidents, I have felt that it is imperative to hurry to use my camera to make a detailed record of their life in order to educate the public and as a gift to later generations.

When photographing black-faced spoonbills it is impossible to completely avoid disturbing them. But with the advance in photographic techniques and equipment, the change as the birds have come to tolerate and accept us brings me indescribable pleasure.

Treasure heaven's gifts

"Today the birds, tomorrow mankind" is by no means an empty slogan. If the proposed land reclamation project at Chiku goes ahead with its refuse tip and industrial park, it will sound the deathknell of the Chiku coast. As mankind gradually loses the protection of the natural environment, there is no way he can survive alone in the world.

[Picture Caption]

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A startled black-faced spoonbill spreads its wings before taking to the air.

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Black-faced spoonbills must spend many hours preening their plumage.

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The area around the Tsengwen River estuary is the black-faced spoonbill's most important wintering ground. (photo by Cheng Yuan-ching)

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Black-faced spoonbills are not voracious feeders, and so are even more needful of protection.

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When disturbed, a group of black-faced spoonbills will all lift their heads and look in the direction the sound came from.