Rare bird with tag spotted in SE China’s Fujian

A spoon-billed sandpiper with a green tag marked H0 was spotted by a bird watching society in Weitou Bay, Quanzhou city, southeast China’s Fujian Province, on March 9.

A reliable source said the bird was naturally incubated in Russia in 2017. This is the first time it has been recorded since it was born and had the tag fitted in 2017.

A spoon-billed sandpiper wearing a band forages in Weitou Bay, Quanzhou city, southeast China’s Fujian Province. (Photo/Chen Wensen)

Bird banding is an important method to study the migration of birds. Naturally born young birds have tags engraved with numbers and alphabets, and green tags are fitted on their right legs, while adult birds have tags with numbers, and green tags are fitted on their left legs.

By interpreting the code and color of the tags, people can identify a bird’s home country and how it was incubated.

“We noticed that this bird has never been found after 2017. No records about it have shown in its breeding ground in Russia, and no one has seen it on the migratory routes,” says Wu Kechao, head of the Quanzhou Bird Watching Society. “This discovery is important to spoon-billed sandpiper research.”

There are around 600 spoon-billed sandpipers across the world, which are known as the “giant pandas of birds.” The species is under first-class state protection in China. Spoon-billed sandpipers migrate from their breeding bases in Chukchi, Russia to South and Southeast Asia in winter. Weitou Bay in Quanzhou city is among one of their migratory destinations.

Two spoon-billed sandpipers forage in Weitou Bay, Quanzhou city, southeast China’s Fujian Province. (Photo/Chen Wensen)