In Zhanjiang Mangrove National Nature Reserve, 26 spoon-billed sandpipers and six black-faced spoonbills have been sighted over a span of three days. The Leizhou Bay area of south China's Guangdong Province is the third largest wintering place for spoon-billed sandpipers in the world.

The spoon-billed sandpiper is one of the world's rarest migratory birds and listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Black-faced spoonbills, a second-class protected animal in China, are very sensitive to the environment, and are constantly under threat from a deteriorating habitat. 

(Cover image via VCG)

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