Two days ago AJP spotted this Far Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis) on the tidal flats of Shiu Hau, a village on the south coast of Lantau island. This species of curlew is now classified as Endangered having suffered a large fall in population which IUCN attributes mainly to the loss of mud flats by land reclamation around the Yellow Sea in China and Korea. This is a juvenile which would have been on passage from the breeding area of northeast Asia, Siberia to Kamchatka and Mongolia, to where it will spend the northern winter in Australia, southern Indonesia or even New Zealand. Juvenile curlews have short but still growing bills. The bill of the adult is the longest of any curlew.
The specific name, madagascariensis, is the result of a 1760s cock-up. It was first used by Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723– 1806) for this species. His latin names did not correspond to the binomial system of Linnaeus but the latter adopted and adapted many of them. Unfortunately, in naming the bird Brisson thought the site of collection of his specimen to be Madagascar. It was in fact Makassar, now in Indonesia.
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