Spoon-billed Sandpiper

Calidris pygmaea (Linnaeus, 1758)

Scolopacidae — Sandpipers, Snipes

Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Calidris pygmaea, breeds in the low Arctic and subarctic coastal tundra of north-east Siberia, from the north-east and east Chukotskiy Peninsula to the north Kamchatka Peninsula, and spends the non-breeding season on coastal mudflats from Taiwan and eastern China to Bangladesh, mainly in Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Its most striking feature is the spoon-shaped bill. It is a small wader in the sandpiper family, first named by Linnaeus in 1758. The breeding adult shows red-brown on the head, neck and breast, with dark streaking and blackish upperparts edged in buff and pale rufous.

Order: Charadriiformes
Family: Scolopacidae — Sandpipers, Snipes
Breeding range: Palearctic: coastal low Arctic to subarctic tundra of ne Siberia: ne, e Chukotskiy Pen. to n Kamchatka Pen. (ne Russia)
Nonbreeding range: Oriental Region: coastal mudflats from Taiwan and ec China to Bangladesh; mainly Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh