he Philippines from 10 till 13 March 2018 has given tantalizing clues.
Plus if that wasn’t good news enough, Chinese Crested Tern have now also been spotted for the first time in Japan. On 20 October 2018, Dr Vladimir Dinets, a biologist teaching in Okinawa, took photos of Chinese Crested Tern while driving on the bridge linking the islands of Miyako and Irabu. “Given the vicinity of Japan to the Chinese Crested Tern’s current range, this discovery is long anticipated,” commented Chan. “But that doesn’t make it any less exciting! Also, the date of discovery might suggest that the post-breeding wandering stage of this species is quite long, meaning the potential success of using social attraction at new breeding sites is higher than previously expected.” If our work successfully continues, it looks like the puzzle of Where’s Wally for Asia’s rarest seabird could hopefully get a lot easier in the future.
The BirdLife International Chinese Crested Tern project is generously funded by the Ocean Park Conservation Foundation, Hong Kong; the Tilia Fund; the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme; the National Geographic Society; and the Honk Kong Bird Watching Society (BirdLife in Hong Kong, China).
Thanks to Yu Yat-tung of the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, Dr Park Jin-young and National Institute of Biodiversity Research of Korea, Dr Lee Kisup of Waterbird Network Korea for supporting and giving advice to the project, and Dr Kiyoaki Ozaki of Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Japan for the discovery of Chinese Crested Tern in Japan.