Ken Cross in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.: Khok Kam Birding

Waders at Khok Kam

Today I hired a guide and driver from a Thai birding company – Wildbirdeco. Their website is here –
http://www.wildbirdeco.net/ The company specialise in birding, nature photography and wildlife trips and tours, originally and still in Thailand but now over south east Asia. I originally thought the price was a little steep for a ½ day tour, and for one person, it kinda was but it would have been much cheaper had I had any friends….. [So for 6 people the total charge would have been very little more….]

My trip was a common one with a single species target in mind – the Spoonbill Sandpiper. There was also the promise of other wader species. An early start was needed and my van, English speaking guide and driver were there to meet me when I stumbled out of my cheap Khao San Road area hotel at 5-50am in the morning….The drive down south towards the coast was surprisingly busy and my heart sunk a little when it started or perhaps continued raining. After a stop for coffee we were soon at the salt pans / mud flats and our local guide – the non English speaking - Suchart Daengpayon (Tee) was there to meet us at Khok Kam.

my guide, Tee.

Khok Kam is an area of salt pans and mud that is well known to birders! Despite it being largely mud it does have a beauty to it, especially in the early morning light, before it bakes under a hot Thai sky. And there were birds; lots of birds.

Khok Kam - early morning skies

But first the bird I had especially come to see…the Spoon billed Sandpiper.

Spoon billed Sandpiper - lifer!

From the Bird Conservation Society of Thailand [BCST] [https://www.bcst.or.th/about-us/ ];

Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) is the most threatened shorebird on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, with perhaps as few as 200 breeding pairs remaining, having undergone a dramatic decline during the past two decades, partly as a result of loss of habitat on the flyway. Like many migratory shorebirds found in Thailand, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper breeds on the Russian tundra and twice a year makes a hazardous migration along the coasts of east Asia. About 10 Spoon-billed Sandpipers are recorded in the Inner Gulf of Thailand each year with Pak Thale-Laem Phak Bia in Phetchaburi province having the highest annual records. This bird is quite site faithful as shown by the fact that birds flagged and numbered on the breeding grounds have been recorded at the same sites in the Inner Gulf of Thailand on successive years.

From the Saving the Spoon billed Sandpiper https://www.saving-spoon-billed-sandpiper.com/ ;

Studies on the breeding grounds indicate that the severe population decline in the 2000s was driven by high mortality of young birds – the proportion of fledged birds that returned to the breeding grounds was very low, just 0.05 birds recruited per adult per year. In contrast, adult survival (76% p.a.) and productivity (about 0.6 young fledge per pair annually) were within the bounds of what would be expected for a small arctic-breeding wader species.

Spoonie in breeding grounds.

The species’ long-term decline is likely the result of habitat loss and degradation, particularly the reclamation of inter-tidal staging sites in the Yellow Sea, but trapping on the wintering grounds appears to be a key reason for the acceleration in the rate of decline. Some evidence suggests that most young birds remain on their non-breeding grounds for their first two years, and are therefore likely to be more vulnerable to trapping.

Since 2009, action has been undertaken throughout the flyway by a wide range of people and organisations working in partnership to halt the decline. There are encouraging signs that conservation measures are reducing the impacts of some threats and bolstering the population but there is also the continuation of some key threats and the emergence of new ones. There remains a great deal of work to do. The most important and challenging aspect of which is maintaining and protecting habitat at key sites, particularly stopover sites in the Yellow Sea. At least one key stopover site remains unknown. The first site where spoon-billed sandpipers are normally observed in the autumn, the Jiangsu coast of China, is too far from the breeding grounds to be the first stopover site indicating a site in Russia remains to be found. Similarly, only a portion of the population can be found during breeding and wintering seasons indicating there are also breeding and wintering sites yet to be found.

The ultimate goal of spoon-billed sandpiper conservation is a secure future for the species. Conservationists have set an ambitious but achievable aim to not only halt the decline by 2025, but increase the population by 50% (to 300 pairs) over that same period.

I saw one Spoon billed Sandpiper - a famous one. One with a name. Lime 05.

#05 surrounded by Red necked Stints

From BSCT website;

‘Lime 05’ is the most well known among several flagged Spoon-billed Sandpipers that have been recorded in Thailand. It is a female bird that was ringed on 20 June 2013 in the vicinity of Meinypil’gyno Village, Anadyr District, just south of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka Autonomous Area, Far East Russia. She was then observed and photographed on her wintering grounds at Khok Kham, Samut Sakhon Province, Inner Gulf of Thailand on 30 November 2013 after a long-distance migration covering over 7,500 km from Far East Russia. She remained there until at least 6 March 2014 and since then, has continued to come back to the same area every winter.

It was a privilege to see such a critically endangered bird and it was definitely one that i would have needed help to find.

from left to right - Lesser Sand Plover, Broad billed Sandpiper, Red necked Stint

In addition to the Spoonie there were many many Lesser Sand Plovers, Pacific Golden Plovers and Grey Plovers.

Curlew Sandpipers, Red Knots, Great Knots, Common Greenshank, Marsh Sandpiper, Red necked Stints were all seen and these are all birds that are still relatively easy to see in Australia.