How Hong Kong birdwatchers helped save wetlands icon the black-faced spoonbill

If you were to liken the more than 500 bird species recorded in Hong Kong to a movie cast, the two stars would be the black-faced spoonbill and the spoon-billed sandpiper. Both are wetland birds seen in Deep Bay, including Mai Po marshes, and, as their names suggest, both have flattened tips to their bills, which somewhat resemble spoons.

The black-faced spoonbill is the better known of the two and, in recent years, has begun appearing in newspaper articles and television reports. Size is part of the appeal; at more than 70cm tall, it's one of the larger birds in Hong Kong, easily spotted as it stands or wades in shallow waters. During the winter, the spoonbills are white, apart from black skin from bill to eye, but in the spring, adults sprout sulphur-yellow punk-rock-style head plumes and matching sulphur breast patches.

The spoon-billed sandpiper is far less showy. At no more than 16cm from bill tip to tail tip, it's only a shade larger than a sparrow, and not even as long as a spoonbill's bill. Most people have never heard of the spoon-billed sandpiper but among birdwatchers, it has a special, almost mythical status - partly because it's a rare denizen of South and East Asian coasts. Also, while there are six broadly lookalike spoonbill species worldwide, the spoon-billed sandpiper is the only one of the world's 213 shorebird (or wader) species to have a spoon-like bill.

For all their differences, both are teetering on the brink of extinction as threats to their wetland homes continue to rise.

seemed anything but star material when I moved to Hong Kong, in early 1987. During a visit to Mai Po, I saw a variety of birds, including pelicans, herons, shorebirds and ducks, as well as four resting black-faced spoonbills, to which I paid little attention, as the field guide said the spoonbill was a regular at Mai Po, and there was no suggestion it was a global rarity.