East Asian – Australasian Flyway

Impressions of 2019 Yellow Sea and Bohai Wetlands International Conference (Yancheng, China)
Posted on September 30, 2019
Photo blog by Theunis Piersma on the Yellow Sea and Bohai Wetlands International Conference, 26-30 September, in Yancheng, China

Bill Sutherland: “Make the Yellow Sea one of the best places in the world to do coastal research”
Sutherland pleas for a local research community in a global setting: “show leadership in global collaborations and create an evidence-based World Heritage Site. This would be a first!”.

Interface between aquaculture and biodiversity
Songlin Wang, acknowledging GFN, warns against the dangerous poison-related effects on sea cucumber farming. Shorebirds as indicator! Even for healthy, ecofriendly seafood.

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Hebo Peng (BFU, RUG, NIOZ) summarizing the charged interface between aquaculture and shorebird foraging opportunities along the China coastline. Marine organism as food for birds and people.

THE END

Theunis Piersma is in the front, sitting next to the mayor of Yancheng.

Posted in East Asian – Australasian Flyway
Shorebird northward migration through Bohai Bay, China / 渤海湾北迁鸻鹬 研究工作报告
Posted on September 24, 2019
REPORT ON THE TENTH FIELD SEASON APRIL – JUNE 2019

Posted on September 24, 2019

Again in 2019, during the spring migration season the GFN team worked in Bohai Bay, China, to study Red Knots and Great Knots on northward migration. This year the team consisted of Chris Hassell, Adrian Boyle, Matt Slaymaker and Nigel Jackett. The senior researcher in the project, Theunis Piersma, visited for about one week.

It is a long report but it does have lots of great images to keep you reading! Here is the PDF: GFN Bohai Report 2019 web PDF.

A novelty this year is the Chinese summary: 渤海湾北迁鸻鹬 研究工作报告 (第十野外季）

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Bohai 2019 Update 5: 30 May
Posted on June 3, 2019
The GFN team is in Bohai Bay, China, to study Red Knots and Great Knots on northward migration. Chris Hassell, Adrian Boyle, and Matt Slaymaker post regular updates on the Australian Global Flyway Network website. Here is the latest.

GFN now assist Beijing Normal University (BNU) with counts and we choose the most suitable tides and count all the coastal sites on the same tide cycle. We record all shorebirds and waterbirds and have amassed a great data set over the years. We think the huge increase of Red Knot in the area since 2017 is ‘real’, but we are still not 100% sure if we were unable to locate some birds during 2016 and 2017 or they didn’t arrive at Luannan and were using other sites in the Yellow Sea region. Our ‘sense’ was that the birds were not here (see reports from 2016 and 2017).

Red Knots feeding on the mud in front of a local fishing boat at Nanpu. Photo: Adrian Boyle
The rogersi subspecies of Red Knot have started to leave for their Chukotka breeding grounds while the piersmai subspecies are still arriving at Luannan. A very important factor influencing their numbers is the amount of food available in the mud. Hebo Peng of the University of Groningen had very encouraging news, stating:
‘The main food of shorebirds in general and Red Knots in particular is very abundant in Nanpu this year, Potamocorbula bivalves were found in the highest (average) density over the last five years. Other shellfish species also show a high density in this area, which means that Nanpu wetland is still healthy and can support large numbers of shorebirds.’

Read the full report here on the Global Flyway Network Australia website.

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Bohai 2019 Update 4: 21 May
Posted on May 28, 2019
The GFN team is in Bohai Bay, China, to study Red Knots and Great Knots on northward migration. Chris Hassell, Adrian Boyle, and Matt Slaymaker post regular updates on the Australian Global Flyway Network website. Here is the latest.

As of the 18th of May, the GFN team had recorded 106 Red Knots, 51 Great Knots and 2 Bar-tailed Godwits that had been individually colour-banded in Northwest Australia (NWA). They have also now recorded 118 individually identifiable shorebirds with yellow engraved leg flags (from NWA) comprising 71 Great Knots, 32 Red Knots, 10 Bar-tailed Godwits, 5 Curlew Sandpipers, 2 Ruddy Turnstones and a single Sanderling.

TAU, a Red Knot Calidris canutus piersmai from Broome, feeding in a salt pond at Nanpu. Photo: Adrian Boyle
Read the full report here on the Global Flyway Network Australia website.

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Bohai 2019 Update 3: 10 May
Posted on May 13, 2019

The GFN team is in Bohai Bay, China, to study Red Knots and Great Knots on northward migration. The team (Chris Hassell, Adrian Boyle, and Matt Slaymaker) posts regular updates on the Australian Global Flyway Network website. Here is the latest update, with as highlight the visit of the New Zealand Ambassador to China, Clare Fearnley.

Chris Hassell presented a book written by Theunis Piersma to the Ambassador on Theunis’ behalf, as he had left the day before. Photo: GFN
Chris: “Talking of visitors, Kath Leung joined us for her fourth visit and added a great skill set to our scanning efforts. Professor Zhang, various, PhD students and volunteers from Beijing Normal University were and are here. Zhang has been a great financial and scientific collaborator of our studies here. The inspiration for the creation of GFN and its scientific leader, Theunis Piersma, was with us for an all too brief period. Theunis joins us in all our fieldwork and then we bombard him with questions whenever we are (k)not scanning. It is a very busy and productive time. The Bohai field team would like to take this opportunity to thank Theunis for the huge amount of fund raising he does to keep the Bohai work going and all his continually positive encouragement to us.”

Professors Zhang and Piersma with one of the fishermen we see every day. Photo: GFN
Read the full report here on the Global Flyway Network Australia website.

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Bohai 2019 Update 2: 27 April
Posted on May 7, 2019
The GFN team is in Bohai Bay, China, to study Red Knots and Great Knots on northward migration. The team, Chris Hassell together with Adrian Boyle, veteran of 11 Bohai seasons, and Matt Slaymaker, posts regular updates on the Australian Global Flyway Network website. Here is the second of this season. The team reports:

It has been a week that has given us a little of everything; from wind and rain to blue skies and sun. From great scanning to fog with 10-metre visibility.

Shorebird numbers continue to increase in both overall numbers and diversity. Many of the regular species are continuing to arrive and have been joined by small numbers of scarce migrants such as Asian Dowitcher, Nordmann’s Greenshank and Little Stint. A count on the 26th totalled around 26,000 birds at Nanpu, our main site, with many more along the neighbouring sections of coast. Numbers seem to be broadly similar to this time last year, but we are also due a big increase in the coming days, particularly of Red Knot and Curlew Sandpiper…..

A typical scene in the saltponds. How many shorebird species can you see?
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