[Rob Sheldon, the RSPB's Head of International Species Recovery Team, is out in Bangladesh at the moment - here are his thoughts from the field]

[This is his second post, to see his earlier post, see here]

As I peer into the distance I realize the person who first mooted the difficulties of spotting needles in haystacks may just have been a birder.

 I’m still on Sonadia Island in Bangladesh and I’m accompanying an ultra-important two day wader survey.  Our mission was to spot

ONE of these…

A spoon-billed sandpiper.  Photo credit - Sayam Chowdhury

Amongst MANY of these.

 Photo credit - Sayam Chowdhury

So, we have chosen to do this at the ‘easiest’, well actually I mean the ‘least impossible’, times of the year.  Now, the tides are at their highest, we are concentrating on the high-tide roosts and as the tide rises, the birds are getting squeezed into small areas which should make it easier to count!  We surveyed three separate key areas...

... and we have seen ZILCH

I’m disappointed, but not unsurprised, and a bit blurry-eyed.  There were moments in the heat when I thought the spoonies were contenders for the hide and seek title.  And I was taking part in one the most important i-Spy’s in the World.

But actually .. it seems likely that the spoonies and other species have already started their long-perilous journey back to the their breeding grounds of north-eastern Russia. 

On the upside, we DID see19 different shorebird species and over 1,726 individual shorebirds were recorded.

This two day attempt shadows the hardwork that has been undertaken by two key experts Sayam and Foysal who have been surveying these mudflats for a number of years and have gathered the information that shows that Sonadia is the most important wintering site in Bangladesh for the Critically Endangered spoon-billed sandpiper.

Photo credit - Rob Sheldon

Sayam says ‘since 2010 we’ve had maximum counts of 27 indvidual spoon-billed sandpiper, which makes Sonadia Island the second most important wintering site, after The Bay of Martaban in Myanmar.  The best months for spoon-billed sandpipers are usually between October and March.

Foysal adds ‘we will continue to survey the Sonadia mudflats over the summer months [these guys just don’t give up!] because one of the big gaps in our knowledge is finding out where the non-breeding birds spend their first summer.  The more data we have on the birds and wildlife of Sonadia Island will mean we can ensure that the area gets the protection it deserves”. 

Our work is supported by SOS and WWT.  You can read about the project to help save the spoon-billed sandpiper here.  Watch out for the final update on our work in Bangladesh.