|
Black-faced spoonbill
migration delayed by a month
Staff writer, with CNA
An endangered black-faced
spoonbill stands in a pond in Greater Tainan yesterday.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan Ecological Conservation Society
Endangered black-faced spoonbills that
spend the winter in wetland areas of Greater Tainan are making their return
migration to northeast Asia nearly one month later than usual, researchers at
Taijiang National Park said on Tuesday.
The researchers said the delayed migration might have been caused by climate
change and they estimated that about 200 of the birds had already left Taiwan.
The movements of one of two birds being tracked by the park with wireless radio
transmitters since last month are no longer detectable, indicating that the bird
has already left Taiwan, the researchers said.
Other changes in the birdsˇ¦ behavior have also been noted by researchers.
The number of birds arriving in Taiwan peaked in January rather than between the
end of November and the middle of December, as observed in previous years. In
addition, the birds began moulting into their breeding plumage slightly later
than usual, the researchers said.
A month earlier, researchers had predicted that the slow growth of the breeding
plumage would delay the migration season, as only 40 percent of the birds had
begun growing new feathers at that time. The new feathers normally finish
growing by the middle of March.
The birds began migrating from South Korea to Taiwan at about the same time as
in previous years ˇX around the time of the Mid--Autumn Festival, which fell on
Sept. 12 last year ˇX but the numbers did not peak until about a month later than
normal.
The wading bird has a worldwide population of about 2,000 and it winters mostly
in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
|
