ong Kong lies just within the tropics on the South China coast at longitude 22В°20'N and latitude 114В°10'E. Its land area is only a little over 1,000 km2, yet in Mai Po and Deep Bay, in the northwestern New Territories (plates 58 & 59), it boasts a wetland of truly international importance. Wintering waterbirds include such rarities as Black-faced Spoonbill Plataka minor and Saunders's Gull Lams saundersi, but it is the waders that provide the real spectacle, especially during the spring passage when numbers increase dramatically. With each high tide, the waders are forced off the Deep Bay mudflats, and many head for the specially managed pools of the Mai Po Nature Reserve to roost. The excellent facilities at the Reserve, which is managed and partially owned by the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, have been developed since 1983 and, by providing improved access and key observation points, they have gready assisted the study of waders in the area. No fewer than 57 species of wader have been recorded in Hong Kong, but only three have been proved to breed. Habitat destruction has resulted in the loss of the Pheasant-tailed Jacana Hydrophasianus chirurgus, which last bred in 1973. There is just one breeding record of Greater Painted-snipe Rostratula5 2 . Greater Sand Plover Charadrius leschenaultii, Mai Po, Hong Kong, April 1988 (Ray Tipper). Moulting into summer plumage, showing the narrow breast-band that helps separate this species from Lesser Sand Plover C. mongolus. This individual appears to have a