Black-faced Spoonbill

The black-faced spoonbill is a white East Asian wader 60–78 cm long with a long, flattened, spoon-shaped black bill and bare black facial skin. Adults develop a shaggy crest and golden-yellow wash across the crest and breast during the breeding season; younger birds have smoother, paler bills and black tips to the flight feathers. Its black face joins directly to the bill, distinguishing it from the larger Eurasian spoonbill, whose pale face contrasts with its dark bill (Hong Kong Biodiversity Information Hub; Bird Research News).

It breeds mainly on small islands around the western Korean Peninsula and northeastern China, then migrates south to winter on tidal flats, estuaries, marshes, lagoons and managed fishponds along the East Asian coast, including Vietnam. Feeding birds walk through shallow water while sweeping the partly open bill from side to side, snapping up small fish and aquatic invertebrates. A stick nest generally contains two or three eggs, incubated for about 26 days by both parents (Hong Kong Biodiversity Information Hub; East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership action plan).