Now we’ve finished preparing the facility for the long awaited breeding season, we can keep a close eye on the birds for signs of breeding activity… The first clear indications that the birds are coming into breeding condition is the dropping of their winter feathers. You typically st

Its that time of year again… The Team are geared up for what looks to be a promising season with the captive Spoon-billed Sandpipers here at WWT Slimbridge. Building on our knowledge and experience with every year, we have entered spring with an open mind and some new ideas. Pro

It’s with great pride and sadness that we announce the successful breeding of the first spoonie chick at Slimbridge and the first ever anywhere in the world, however the bird has sadly died. Just as we were about to officially announce the news, it died of a tragic flying injury that

The seven females and their partners seem settled in their breeding aviaries… but will they lay eggs? ‘Time-shifting’ the Spoonies, by six weeks, has so far, led to many birds acquiring breeding plumage six weeks sooner. With the beginning of territorial singing coin

Although not everyone has enjoyed the extra snow this weekend, the Spoonies at Slimbridge are having the time of their lives! We thought you’d like to see some of the snowy scenes at the Spoon-billed Sandpiper facility brought by the ‘Beast from the East’ at the start of March and in

Since the decision was made to time-shift the Spoonies (bring the breeding season forward by altering day length) things have been a little apprehensive in the polytunnels… so has it paid off? For most of their lives the Spoonies have experienced artificial day lengths, using ar

Preparations for next season are well underway! Here’s a brief summary of what the Spoonies have been up to post breeding season. Since our last update in July the captive Spoonies (and the team) have been very busy indeed. Once it was established the breeding season was over the bird

Update from Baz Hughes I think you might have all realised that there’s been a bit of blog silence on the Slimbridge spoonies so it’s time to update you. Put bluntly, we didn’t get eggs this year, but it wasn’t for lack of trying! Moult into summer plumage commenced in late February w

It’s that time of year again! The monitoring and headstarting team have arrived at the breeding grounds in Meinypil’gyno, Russia to await the return of the spoon-billed sandpipers, and at WWT Slimbridge, we’ve moved birds to breeding aviaries and the singing and nest scrap

From elation to devastation. Over the last few days, the two viable eggs at Slimbridge successfully hatched producing two perfect looking Spoon-billed Sandpiper chicks. The chicks seemed to do well initially but their health deteriorated and within 60 hours of hatching both chicks die