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Headstarting is a collaborative effort between WWT, BirdsRussia and the RSPB, and occurs as part of the International Arctic Expedition mounted each year by BirdsRussia under the leadership of Dr. Evgeny Syroechkovskiy.

Spoonies in China: 2019 expedition update

Update from Kane Brides (WWT) Hello from Rudong, on the shores of the Yellow Sea in China! Since arriving and meeting up with Professor Chang and his team of students from Nanjing Normal University we have had a busy schedule! The team have been working flat out around the clock carry
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Spoonies in China: 2019 expedition getting underway

Update from Kane Brides (WWT) A year certainly does come around quickly! As I type, I am sat at London’s Heathrow with a team of people ready to fly out to China to continue working on Spoon-billed Sandpipers. In fact, we are not the only people getting ready for travel. The Spoon-bil
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News from the Field: Hatching begins

Update from Jodie Clements (3 July 2019) In early July, chicks were hatching left, right and centre! And with new life, came new challenges… The first chick hatched on 1st July, the earliest to hatch in the rearing house since headstarting in Meina began. During incubation, natural or
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News from the field: Busy, busy, busy!

Update from Jodie Clements (24 June 2019) In addition to the eggs in the last post, another 4 eggs were collected. These came from K6 and his unmarked partner. This clutch was quite intriguing with the eggs appearing larger than normal, especially once put in the incubator with the ot
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Spoony and friends – the breeding waders of Meina

Blog from Guy Anderson (Nature Recovery Unit, RSPB) While searching for spoonies on the tundra around Meina, we often bump into other waders rushing through their short breeding season. Some of these share much of their year with our spoony friends. Red-necked, Long-toed and Temminck’
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News from the field: Collection Complete

After a slow start locating spoonie pairs, relentless searching (and a bit of luck) enabled us to find several more pairs and 9 clutches were collected for headstarting. The incubator now has 34 precious Spoonie eggs developing within it! By collecting eggs this early in the season it
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News from the Field: Where are the missing blogs?

They’re on their way! We’ve had a few problems posting this year but the team have still been compiling them and we now have four installments ready for you that will be posted over the next couple of days. Our sincere apologies there’s been a delay but we hope you e
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Slimbridge Spoonies: They hatched, they grew, they fledged!

Update from Jodie Clements After what felt like an eternity, the eggs had finally been incubated long enough to see whether or not they were fertile… we had some concerns over fertility as no obviously successful copulations had been witnessed. You may be thinking, well this is a priv
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News from the field: The Kerzhak camp – four go surveying on the tundra

Update by Guy Anderson (Nature Recovery Unit, RSPB). The first week after spoonies arrive back on their breeding grounds in early June is a critical time to find territories. This is when they are most vocal – lots of displaying, and lots of singing – a Dunlin-like bubbling tril
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News from the field: More arrivals, eggs and spot the spoonie nest!

Update from Jodie Clements The second contingent of field workers arrived in Meinypil’gyno on the 5 June as planned! With good weather in Anadyr and a break in the fog at Meino the helicopter was able to fly with just a couple of hours delay. We were greeted by Sveta, Roman and
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