A rare sighting on the Bengal coast has revealed an extraordinary journey. A spoon-billed sandpiper, one of the world's most critically-endangered birds, was recently spotted at Patibunia beach near Bakkhali, and researchers believe it may have travelled nearly 8,000 km from Russia, reported The Times of India.
A tag that told a story
The breakthrough came from a small but significant detail; a lime green tag on the bird's right leg. The marking carried a unique code that helped experts trace its origin.
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According to birders, the tag revealed that the bird was "banded as a wild chick at Meinypilgyno, Chukotka, Russia on July 6, 2025". This makes it the first recorded sighting of the bird since it began its long migration along the East Asia-Australasian flyway.
With fewer than 500 spoon-billed sandpipers believed to survive in the wild, each confirmed sighting is crucial for conservation efforts, experts said.
From local sighting to global link
The discovery followed multiple observations. Birder Sandip Das, a founder member of the Kolkata-based Birdwatchers' Society, first photographed a spoon-billed sandpiper on March 29, though that individual did not carry a tag, TOI stated in its report.
Two days later, another sighting changed everything. "Two days later, Jayanta Manna was the first to click another spoon-billed sandpiper on the beach. This one had a lime green tag on its right leg," Das was quoted as saying by TOI.
This prompted quick coordination among birdwatchers and scientists, including Bangladesh-based researcher Sayam U Chowdhury and experts from the Zoological Survey of India.
Why the tags matter
The lime green tag is not random. It forms part of a broader conservation effort to monitor the species. "These tags are part of a crucial conservation effort to track the critically endangered birds," Das said.
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Different colours indicate different categories. Lime green marks wild-born birds, while white is used for captive-bred chicks and yellow for birds tagged at stopover locations. These identifiers help track migration routes and survival rates across regions, including key stopover sites like Rudong in China.
Sightings of spoon-billed sandpipers in India are uncommon. The first documented record in Bengal dates back to April 1, 2018. Nationwide, only a handful of sightings have been reported, including one from Tamil Nadu in 1996.
