The hand-reared spoon-billed sandpiper is the one in the background with a green leg ring (c) Chung-Yu Chiang and Chin-Shi Hsu
Happy World Migratory Bird Day! As mentioned previously on this blog, the first hand-reared spoon-billed sandpiper has been spotted migrating back towards Chukotka, Russia where it was hatched.
It is one of nine chicks reared by hand by Roland Digby in 2012 at the breeding ground in northern Russia, to ensure they survived through the crucial early days. The birds migrated 5,000 miles away to south Asia and there’s been a 2 year wait to see if they would return north to breed.
Now one of the group has been spotted and photographed on its way back to Russia by Chung-Yu Chiang and Chin-Shi Hsu at Kinmen Island, Taiwan, off the east China coast. At 2 years old, it’s now ready to breed and could become the first hand-reared spoon-billed sandpiper to produce offspring in the wild and add to the species’ fragile population.
WWT aviculturist Roland Digby said:
“Two years ago I reared and released nine spoon-billed sandpiper fledglings on the Russian tundra. Theoretically all could return to breed for the first time this summer, but the odds are severely stacked against them. Illegal bird-trapping and the destruction of wetlands mean that very few birds survive to maturity.
“It tells us that hand-rearing works and these birds behave and migrate normally. What’s more, reports of individual birds like this one, who we know, give us an indication of the proportion of young birds that are reaching breeding age.”
The leg ring shows this bird hatched on 14 July 2012 from an egg of a clutch collected for artificial incubation on 22 June. After fledging it was released on 10 August and was last seen on the Russian breeding grounds on 17 August 2012.
Pavel Tomkovich of Birds Russia, who marked the bird said:
“During the coming summer we’ll look for this bird back on the breeding grounds and hope to see it in the area where it was raised and released.
“All that remains of the spoon-billed sandpiper population is thought to be fewer than 100 breeding pairs. So seeing this one individual, who we know is just reaching maturity and returning to breed for the first time, is hugely significant.”
Nigel Clark wader expert from the BTO said:
“This is a huge reward for the team that toiled to rear these birds on their arctic breeding grounds. The pictures of Lime 8 show that it is growing its breeding plumage feathers right on schedule showing that headstarted young that have successfully integrated into the wild population.”
Roland Digby and Pavel Tomkovich are due to return to the spoon-billed sandpipers’ Russian breeding grounds this month for a further season of field surveys and hand-rearing.
The project is part of a multi-pronged international attempt to save the spoon-billed sandpiper. In case the birds in the wild suffer further losses, the only reserve flock in the world is being reared in a biosecure facility at WWT Slimbridge Wetland Centre. In the near future, eggs from the Slimbridge flock could be flown to Russia to be hatched and released as an insurance against the species falling into extinction quicker than it can be saved in the wild.
