One of About 500

This is  the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, which is a “Critically Endangered” species according to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).  According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (creator of the Ebird and Merlin apps and the All About Birds website) there are about 100 breeding pairs left in the WORLD.  These birds breed in northeast Russia and then migrate to southeast Asia during the winter.  If there was one bird every participant on our tour wanted to see it would have been the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Our Thai bird guide and driver Chiang called ahead and hired a spotter to go out in the salt plots to find the bird.  We were in luck!  The spotter found it and we excitedly observed it from afar.  Take a look at the end of the bill and you see it is like a little shovel.  We were lucky to see this one of approximately 500 Spoon-billed Sandpipers in the world.