With its spatulate bill the Spoon-billed Sandpiper is unique among waders. Measuring only 5 1/2 inches, it is the only globally threatened sandpiper breeding in the Arctic, with only 450 to 1,000 birds remaining. It has a limited breeding range on the Chukotsk peninsula and southwards up to the isthmus of the Kamchatka peninsula, in north-eastern Russia. It migrates down the western Pacific coast through Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong (China) and Taiwan (China), to its main wintering grounds in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Wintering birds have also been recorded from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Found almost exclusively at sea-coasts where there are sandy ridges sparsely vegetated by mosses, dwarf willows and grasses, interspersed with or neighboring to salt marshes and brackish ponds. Throughout its migratory and wintering ranges, tidal flats are being reclaimed for industry, infrastructure and aquaculture and are becoming increasingly polluted. There are no immediate threats to the breeding grounds, but nests are sometimes destroyed by dogs. Human disturbance, both by residents and researchers, may cause increased levels of nest desertion and predation by foxes and skuas. Shorebirds, including this species, are also occasionally killed by children with slingshots. The beauty and uniqueness of this bird has been a rally cry from environmental organizations around the world to save this species and some protections are underway. Sadly, plainer and less unique bird species, but just as threatened, are ignored and slip closer to extinction. The Spoonbill Sandpiper is one my "Small Waders" from Shorebirds Volume III.