Black-faced spoonbill

   It closely resembles the Eurasian spoonbill, but its black eye patch and the lack of a visible boundary between its eye and bill led to its English and Japanese names meaning ‘black-faced’.

    Its population once dwindled to around 300 birds, bringing it to the brink of extinction. It primarily nests on the cliffs of islands along North Korea’s west coast, but its numbers are said to have plummeted due to environmental destruction during the Korean War in the 1950s and pesticide use. It is now protected as a flagship species for wetland conservation along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway and is said to have recovered to over 6,000 individuals.

     Over 90% winter in China and Taiwan, but they also migrate annually to Japan, primarily to various parts of Kyushu and Okinawa Island, and are becoming less of a rarity than in the past.