We are pleased to announce that the first eggs of the season have been laid!
As you may remember from the previous update, male Pink Dark Green and his female Pink Red Right have been tending diligently to their nest scrape. He has lined it beautifully with thatch, creating a kind of woven border; and adorned it with tiny pebbles. Neither one has let up on singing nor displaying so we were hopeful she would lay very soon…
She kept us waiting quite a while even after we were sure of imminent lay. Spoon-billed Sandpipers lay large eggs for their body size, with the egg weighing 25% of their body mass! This makes it quite obvious when a female is about to lay as you can see the shape of the egg under her tail. We call this ‘gravid’ or ‘heavy’.
Female Pink Red Right teasing us with her ‘heavy’ appearance! Photo by Tanya Grigg.
Finally, one late April morning, she laid her first egg of the season. Theses eggs are invaluable, and so the same morning we replaced this egg with a dummy and took it into our care. The second and third eggs were laid over the next few days, also replaced with dummy eggs which the pair were none the wiser to.
Left to right: First egg of Pink Red Right. Second egg with dummy. All 3 eggs ready for incubation.
We don’t start artificial incubation until we are sure the final egg of the clutch has been laid. This is similar to the way wild Spoonies behave, ensuring all eggs hatch simultaneously. Spoonies usually lay 4 but 3 is not uncommon. Until the clutch is complete we store the eggs in a temperature controlled chiller at 13°C. This slows down development of the embryo until we are ready to incubate.
The eggs were put into the incubator early May. ‘And so my watch began.’
Stayed tuned to find out if the eggs were fertile…!!
If the birds are laying eggs in a captive environment which is safe, then why take the eggs away from the parents? Why not let them raise their young safely here?
I understand taking this headstarting approach in the wild is necessary due to the greater risks for the eggs and hatchlings, but I’m not sure of the need to do this when the birds lay safely in captivity.
Please clarify the necessity of this approach.
Kind regards,
Gordana Pozvek
Hi Gordana
We take the eggs away for two reasons. Firstly, we hope the birds will relay, producing another clutch, as they do in Meina, but the main reason we artificially incubate the eggs is to control the incubation to make sure nothing goes wrong. Eggs left with parents could get kicked out of nests or even broken. In an incubator we can also control the “climate” of the eggs to ensure they experience the right temperature and humidity during their 21 day incubation and thus, crucially, lose the correct amount of weight / moisture (15%). The eggs are weighed every few days and the temperature and humidity manipulated to keep the weight loss in line with the weight loss graphs we produce for each egg. Best wishes. Baz
What lovely news. Fingers crossed for them.
Great news. Looking forward to hearing candling results.
Congratulations and all the very BEST that all eggs are fertile and will hatch!!
any update possible?
best wishes from Germany
tobi
Hi Tobi. Update coming very shortly. Best wishes from Slimbridge 🙂 Baz