Roosting Spoonbills

As I said in the earlier posts, the actual main target for my short trip to Fukuoka was the globally endangered Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor). I did see it and in a good number too, but all of them were staying just too far out in the river. Before going on the trip, I made a little research about where to see the spoonbills, and I found that a good number of them can be seen constantly at Imazu. I came across several videos on YouTube showing the spoonbills resting on a small island in the middle of a huge river. I recognised the island easily as soon as I arrived at the place in Imazu. On the small island, there was a medium-sized flock of white birds roosting motionlessly. I was surprised by how easy these birds can be found here in Fukuoka. I began to settle down waiting for the birds to wake up and start feeding. From what I saw in the videos, these birds feed along the river banks close to the footpath, so I thought that once they wake up, it'd be easy for me to get photos of them closely. However, it turned out that they mostly spent the time on the island. Otherwise they just flew out and disappeared into the distance.

Roosting Black-faced Spoonbills (Platalea minor)

On the first day, I counted 25 spoonbills at once. At least 3 of them were Eurasian Spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia), but there might be more since I couldn't check every individual whether it was Black-faced or Eurasian because many of them were sleeping with their bills hidden in the feathers. I believe that there would be even more birds at dusk once they all come back to roost. On the second day, there were only 18 birds. I tried waiting until the evening but none of them came feeding along the river banks. I was really surprised that they were really lazy birds. Most of them didn't wake up from their sleep at all! Only a few of them began to preen and bath when the sun began to set. At least I found one of their feeding sites as mentioned in the earlier post here. Hopefully, I'll be able to see a few Black-faced Spoonbills at this feeding site during my next visit.

An adult Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)
among the smaller Black-faced Spoonbills (Platalea minor)

Adult (right) and juvenile (left) Eurasian Spoonbills

The only active juvenile Black-faced Spoonbill

A subadult Eurasian Spoonbill coming back to the roosting site

Here's a video showing Black-faced and Eurasian Spoonbills bathing and preening at their roosting site at sunset. Don't forget to select 1080p for a better viewing!

Revealing

So Russell and John did a great job on guessing what a white bird in my earlier post was. However, it's actually not a Black-faced Spoonbill, no matter how much I wanted it to be. Indeed, it's the closely related Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) and it is not my lifer. I've seen both species of spoonbills already when I visited Ariake Sea in 2009. The lifer was actually a much smaller Smew (Mergellus albellus). My main target for the trip was actually the endangered Black-faced Spoonbill, one of birds that I want to photograph the most, and I didn't fail to see it though. Indeed, I saw many of them roosting in the middle of a huge river called Imazu (今津) where they can be seen regularly every winter. There were about 20 something Black-faced Spoonbills and only a few Eurasian Spoonbills resting on a small island in the river.

However, they were much too far away for my lens. After 2 days of searching, I finally found their feeding sites. They were a medium-sized lotus pond filled with all kinds of ducks and a small fishing pond nearby. These sites were about 800m away from their roosting site. I don't know if I was lucky or unlucky, but the spoonbills that I found feeding at the feeding sites were all Eurasians. There were more than 20 Black-faced Spoonbills in the river with only a few Eurasians (like 2 or 3), but there was no Black-faced Spoonbill at the feeding sites at all! Even though I waited until the sun set, still no Black-faced came to the feeding site. It was quite a crazy moment when I didn't know whether I can be happy or not. However, I've already made up my mind to go there again either in February or March. Hopefully, I'll get the Black-faced Spoonbill up close just like the one that I got this time.

Adult non-breeding Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)

I was quite surprised to find that this adult Eurasian Spoonbill was quite obliging. It looked a bit wary at first when it was sandwiched by another birder and me. But after that birder left and I sat very still behind the reeds, it became much more relaxed and started feeding. I slowly approached while it was enjoying feeding among the aquatic vegetation. It has a cute way of swaying its head left to right searching for food just like any other species of spoonbills. I saw it catching lots of preys but couldn't really tell what were they. After a while, it seemed to accept me as part of the scenery and didn't mind me going as close as approximately 15m even without a photographic hide! It was a really nice experience to be able to observe a spoonbill feeding at close range without being in a hide. There were a few other birds feeding close to the spoonbill as well. One immature female Common Shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) was swimming near by and a beautiful Eastern Great Egret (Casmerodius modestus) was standing motionlessly throughout the time that I was taking photos of the spoonbill.

Adult non-breeding Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)

I just love all of the birds with spoon-shaped bills like these spoonbills and the tiny Spoon-billed Sandpiper. I read that the spoon-shaped bills of the spoonbills help the birds to sense and grab food items as they pass between the flattened tips of the mandibles (David Sibley, 2010). Not only that these flattened bills help the birds to catch more food items, they also make the birds look unmistakably stunning. I hope that when I return to the place again in February or March, some of them will begin to moult into their breeding plumage which is even more elegant and beautiful. I still haven't seen the Black-faced Spoonbills in their breeding plumage before, but I've seen plenty of the Eurasian Spoonbills in breeding plumage during my first visit to Bharatpur in India in 2005.

A video of the same Eurasian Spoonbill resting and yawning (?)

Adult non-breeding Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)

The same bird looking at the ducks flying over its head

A recently split Eastern Great Egret (Casmerodius modestus)

Shorebird Watch at Ariake Sea III

It's the last day for me here in Saga, and I decided to enjoy the hotel's breakfast at 7 instead of hurrying to the mudflat. It was very dark and grey outside and it seemed like it's going to rain. I got off from Saga Eki around 8.15 and arrived around 8.45. Today I was able to borrow a bicycle from an old bicycle shop near the Sumiyoshi bus stop in 500 yen so did not have to suffer a 6 km walk anymore. With a bicycle, I was able to arrive the mudflat in no more than 30 minutes, while it took me like hour and a half on foot. The tide was extremely low, just like the morning before, and there were not so many birds around so I rode to the other side of the land. I crossed a bridge to the other side of main river than leads to the sea and found 2 large flocks of Rook (Corvus frugilegus pastinator) feeding in the fields along with a huge flock of Eurasian Tree Sparrows.

A large flock of eastern Rook

Nothing much around actually, 2 Hen Harriers, a female and a juvenile, flushed up from a reed bed and Siberian Meadow Buntings and other common stuffs. I went back to the mudflat and decided to sit somewhere and wait for the waders to come closer since the tide was starting to rise. About half an hour later, I got so many Grey Plover (Pluvialis squatarola) and Dunlin shots. The plovers became surprisingly tame and came walking around all over the place. I was a bit surprised too to see so many Grey Plovers together like this. I've never seen them gathering in large flock before. But what attracted my attention most was the Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata), which seemed to be much more wary than the plovers. It didn't came any closer than 20 or 30 meters. There were many of them feeding around along with the plover. I tried to see if there's Eastern Curlew mixing in the flock or not but didn't find any.

A female Common Shelduck

The molt of the Grey Plovers are actually very interesting. I noticed that there were no, at least very few, adult bird. Most of the birds are either first-winter bird or juvenile. The first-winter birds are interesting to look at. Their worn rusty juvenile feathers are mixed with clean, clear-cut, new adult feathers, like the bird above. The new whitish feathers somehow make the bird looks cuter, kind of snowy.

A brownish juvenile bird

I wonder what were they eating?

The best I could get from the Eurasian Curlew. The bird below should be a juvenile judging from its distinctly shorter bill.

Then I spotted a small group of spoonbill resting far at the water edge. I sat and wait, constantly checked if the birds have moved or not, and finally the birds began to walk closer to the mudflat. I suddenly moved to the other corner of the walkway and sat there waiting for them to come closer but they just stopped there and began to sleep again. I finally found that there were 5 Black-faced Spoonbills and surprisingly 1 Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia). The bird was a non-breeding adult. It looks slightly larger than the Black-faced. I guess that's why Black-faced Spoonbill's scientific name is P.minor.

The Eurasian Spoonbill(left) is slightly larger than the Black-faced Spoonbill(right)

There were thousands of Northern Pintail

I like it when the ducks slowly floating by the flock of spoonbills.

The Eurasian Spoonbill has distinct yellow bill tip.

It slowly wandered around the area, but never came close.

The Northern Pintails mainly stayed away from where I was sitting

Also few waders around including these 2 Common Greenshank

And the abundant Dunlin

This juvenile Black-tailed Godwit was quite tame also.

So I had to leave to place because the rain was falling so hard and ended up soaking wet when I finally arrived at the bus stop just in time when the bus came. It was a nice trip and experience but I think I need another revisit in spring to get a better shot of the spoonbills which were all so far this time and to see the waders in full breeding plumage. I'm really looking forward to spring now.

Together they make a nice couple!