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.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper Art of Szabolcs Kókay

This week we have asked award winning wildlife artist Szabolcs Kókay if he would share some of his experiences observing and painting Spoon-billed Sandpiper. Szabolcs is currently featuring several of his Spoonie paintings on a variety of products through Redbubble. 30% of his artists
Continue Reading →
Spoon-billed Sandpiper L5 already returned this year. Photo by Egor Loktionov.

News from the Field: All systems go!

This year presented some unexpected challenges. In the weeks leading up to the summer expedition it was unclear whether the team could proceed; and certainly not in the usual manner. Birds Russia came up with plans A through D, covering all scenarios and potential challenges that may
Continue Reading →
Headstarted bird '5X'. Photo by Weiguo Ren.

Resightings: A winter summary

An update from Nigel Clark Conservation of Spoon-billed Sandpipers involves a large number of people doing different tasks. Nigel and Jacquie Clark administer the database of records of individually marked birds on behalf of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Task Force and so are still getti
Continue Reading →
Hungry hungry Spoonie. Photo by Jodie Clements.

Slimbridge Spoonies: Insect feast!

A bite-sized update 😉 Spoonie ‘Pink Dark Green’ was so distracted by the fruit flies he didn’t even notice he was being filmed until the very last moment! During the breeding season we increase the amount of live insects fed to the captive Spoonies to replicate the massive hatch off o
Continue Reading →