Spoon-billed sandpipers "live" on Jeremy Vine (1 Viewer)

Incase anyone out there is interested.

The trailer for today's Jeremy Vine show on BBC radio 2 at 12noon includes an item on a WWT project to take Spoon-billed Sand eggs for captive hatching (apparently 3 eggs were lost in the relocation process) ...

Chris A.

You can also read about it here, 16 chicks survive so far from twenty eggs (there were seventeen but unfortunately one died overnight), great picture here - http://sbsproject.wordpress.com/201...ched-and-nige-weighed-5-july-2011-mjmcgill-2/

And the story so far - http://sbsproject.wordpress.com/

Fingers crossed, there is a long way to go!!

Will these birds "remember" how to to migrate if ever reintroduced back into Siberia at some point? Seems a major potential issue with a captive breeding population

Mysticete said:

Will these birds "remember" how to to migrate if ever reintroduced back into Siberia at some point? Seems a major potential issue with a captive breeding population

Click to expand...

My thought too.

Mysticete, chowchilla

Your question is answered in the SBS article in the current issue of British Birds p360 (vol 104): "As is the case with Corncrakes [also recently reintroduced from captive-bred birds] and many Calidris species, young Spoon-billed Sandpipers do not take migratory cues from the adults but leave their breeding grounds as groups of immatures after the adults have departed. There is therefore no reason to suspect that this ability would be lost in birds bred distant from their Arctic Russian breeding grounds."

Cheers
Nick