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During our February tour covering the winter specialties of eastern China, we ended up with some extra time on Hainan which allowed us to visit the north-western corner of the island to search for Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Some individuals of this Critically Endangered shorebird are almost tame at one particular site, which is well-known amongst the Chinese birding and photography community but perhaps not so much internationally! We had wonderful encounters with this awesome bird as three different individuals fed mere metres in front of our awe-struck group!

Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) by Yann Muzika

During our recent tour to Senegal, some welcome surprises joined the list. First of all, at Campement de Wassadou, we unexpectedly sighted a Brown-backed Honeybird (formerly known as Wahlberg’s Honeyguide) visiting a flowering tree. With a small handful of other records at this site since the first documented record for the country here in 2017, the localised presence in Niokola-Koba Park of the species is certainly confirmed.

The following week, near Dindefelo in the far south, we were staking out Black-faced Firefinch at a small waterhole. One bunting which came to visit was not the expected Brown-rumped Bunting, but proved to be a Cabanis’s Bunting, only the 2nd record for Senegal! The previous record was from this exact same waterhole in 2023, however multiple recent sightings of the otherwise scarce western cabanisi subspecies in surrounding countries (especially with Guinea-Bissau having recently acquired its first few records too), the species might regularly occur further to the northwest than previously thought.

Cabanis's Bunting (Emberiza cabanisi cabanisi) from southern Senegal by Joachim Bertrands