17:19 BST Text just received from Nigel Jarrett in Anadyr… last two eggs are hatching as we speak. Fingers crossed they’re ok and take our total up to 18! Keep you posted.

Nigel Jarrett (closest) This post comes from WWT’s HQ at Slimbridge: News of our incredible success hatching a phenomenal number of spoon-billed sandpiper chicks is spreading far and wide. Yesterday, Nigel Jarrett was interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 live from Russia whi

12th July 2011 Roland and Liz have arrived today. They make up Team 2 who are going to take over from myself and Nige Jarrett when we return to the UK in about 10 days. Roland Digby is WWT’s Conservation Breeding Officer and Liz Brown works for the New Zealand Department of Conservati

11th July 2011 Well what an eventful few days. boarded the ship with the eight newly hatched chicks, 12 eggs, considerable anxiety about the trip on rough seas and a great deal of hope. We got off the other end with only three eggs, but an amazing 17 chicks, so we were as happy as hap

8th July 2011 The crew of the Heritage Expedition’s Spirit of Enderby (our transport back to Anadyr) were ashore. They were bringing visitors to see the SBS on the breeding grounds and had brought good news from their search further south…a SBS nest had been found there du

7 July 2011 Apologies to all for the extended radio silence, on our search for spoon-billed sandpiper nests. The past fortnight has been the most intense, exhausting, but exciting time for the team here. We’ve been working day and night, meticulously searching for signs of breeding ad

5 July 2011 The boat arrives soon – weather permitting – and we need to pack and carefully move the eggs and all our equipment ready to go, hopefully in a couple of days.   Who knows when we can update next…probably not until we get back to Anadyr…keep crossing your finger

4 July 2011 It was a disturbed night, someone was banging at the door at 0400, we had nothing for whoever it was. Nige was up on and off all night long checking the incubators. I went to breakfast and left Nige catching up on sleep for a bit. I have spent a few sessions over recent da

3 July 2011 0900hrs The day began with sunshine.  Nikolay is searching the hills for one more suspected nest. Jochen is to look at another area where he watched a displaying male in previous weeks. We did not see or hear this bird on my only visit here with Nikolay but it has been see

2 July 2011 A misty, cool day with no sun on offer.   What has for me been a rather anxious couple of waiting days culminated in post dinner meeting with Nikolay, Pavel and Liza.  On their arrival Nige was fielding another ropey skype call to WWT, Pavel joined in to comment. On comple