TELUK AIR TAWAR, Malaysia — The tide is rising. On the Teluk Air Tawar-Kuala Muda coast (TAT-KM) of Penang state in Peninsular Malaysia, fishers are boating out to the sea for their morning catch. From afar, small brownish birds walk on the mudflat outside the mangrove-lined coast. When a boat gets closer, a flock of about 100 birds soars at once, swirls in unison, and lands farther away. It’s early July when Mongabay visits, the quieter time of the year in the TAT-KM mudflat. Come December, this mudflat will turn into a crowded pit stop for the birds. More than 12,000 migratory shorebirds — common redshanks (Tringa totanus), bar-tailed godwits (Limosa lapponica), Asian dowitchers (Limnodromus semipalmatus) — from Siberia and Alaska, about 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, will rest and feed here. Some birds will winter in TAT-KM, while others will stay long enough to refuel and continue their 20,000-km (12,400-mi) flight to Australia and New Zealand. Along this route, or flyway, they rely on a network of coastal wetlands like TAT-KM to support their journey. Among the birds that once stopped here is the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea), a small shorebird with a unique spatula-shaped bill. Of all eight global flyways, it flies only on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), a migration route spanning 22 countries in Siberia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Spoon-billed sandpipers in Tiaozini, China. Image courtesy of Dongming Li. However, this sandpiper has been so severely impacted by habitat loss,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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