From 300 to 7,746: Asia's Spoonbill Census Breaks Its Eighth Record
In January, more than 200 surveyors spread out across 11 wintering areas from Japan to the Philippines and counted spoonbills over two days. The result, announced in March by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, was 7,746 Black-faced Spoonbills — the eighth consecutive record year for a species that fell below 300 individuals in 1989.
The census is one of the most disciplined pieces of citizen science in Asia. Every January the same wetlands are counted the same way along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway: Deep Bay between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, the coastal wetlands of mainland China, Taiwan, Macao, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Taiwan's fieldwork is coordinated by the Chinese Wild Bird Federation with local bird societies in almost every county. Because the method repeats, the trend is readable.
The numbers this year
Four things stand out in the 2026 count.
Taiwan remains the world's spoonbill heartland. The island recorded 4,719 birds, up 550 (13.2%) and around 61% of the global total — the biggest increase of any wintering area, and a sharp break after three flat years.
The birds moved north within Taiwan. Tainan, the traditional core, still held 2,034, but its share fell. Chiayi recorded 1,515, the largest rise in the country; the mouth of the Zhuoshui River between Changhua and Yunlin reached 465; Yilan 53. Records came from 15 counties, a wider spread than ever before. Birders saw it coming: in November 2025, a survey along the Yunlin to Kaohsiung coast counted more than 5,000 spoonbills, the highest early-season figure yet recorded.
Mainland China was second with 1,834 (+9.8%). Japan recorded 593, down 17%, which the organisers attribute to unstable weather during the count. The Philippines, at the far southern end of the flyway, jumped to 88 birds — more than four times last year's total — and is emerging as a regular wintering area as the population spreads.
Deep Bay is the problem. The Hong Kong–Shenzhen wetland recorded 341 birds, a rise of just 13, or 4.0%. Numbers there have hovered in the 300s for a decade, unable to beat the 411 counted ten years ago. Fifteen years ago Deep Bay held one fifth of the world's spoonbills; this year it held 4.4%, the lowest share on record. “The global population has more than quadrupled, while Deep Bay has stalled,” said Yu Yat-tung, the society's director. “That is a very clear warning signal.”
Why the good news carries a caveat
The recovery has been real enough that the IUCN downgraded the Black-faced Spoonbill from Endangered to Vulnerable in 2025. The coordinator's message is that this is no reason to relax.
Habitat has not grown with the population. More than 60% of the world's spoonbills now winter at a handful of sites — a risk in itself, because one outbreak or one bad season at a key site affects the entire population. There were two warnings this year. A botulism outbreak at the Yong'an and Jiading wetlands in Kaohsiung killed most of the 45 birds rescued there; only 14 survived to be released. And in Hong Kong, invasive mangrove spreading across Deep Bay's mudflats is shrinking the shallow feeding water the birds need — a problem whose solution is unglamorous management rather than a new reserve.
The same message shapes regional planning. A satellite-tagged spoonbill, ringed as A56, has been tracked moving repeatedly between fishpond wetlands around Lok Ma Chau, Tin Shui Wai and Ma Cho Lung — the working landscapes outside the protected area, where traditional pond management keeps water shallow enough to feed. A revised International Single Species Action Plan is due this year to guide the next decade.
A new date also went into the calendar: 21 March 2026 was the first International Black-faced Spoonbill Day, agreed at the 2025 international conservation meeting, with events across Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macao. The third Saturday of every March now belongs to the bird.
Listening to a spoonbill wetland
Spoonbills are not songbirds; their contribution to a wetland's soundscape is mostly the clatter of bills sweeping through shallow water and low croaks from a flock in flight. But the company they keep tells you what kind of wetland you are standing in — and through winter, that shifts week by week.