All the political news in the UK over the past month has obscured some other rather exciting news – the spoon-billed sandpipers at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire have laid their very first eggs!
Whether this resulted in live births or
All the political news in the UK over the past month has obscured some other rather exciting news – the spoon-billed sandpipers at WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire have laid their very first eggs!
Whether this resulted in live births or not, this represented a huge milestone for the project, of which Leica is a proud sponsor. The team were on tenterhooks to see how things played out…
The spoon-billed sandpipers at Slimbridge are the world’s only captive population of these globally endangered waders, which are on the IUCN red list as critically endangered. It represents a vital reserve in the fight to save the species from extinction. Since their relocation from the Siberian tundra, the tiny birds have been carefully cosseted in climate controlled, bio-secure conditions and subject to detailed monitoring.
The spoonies haven’t laid eggs in previous years, so there was tremendous excitement when not one, but two clutches appeared. The success was all the more surprising since breeding behaviours in early spring hadn’t been as noticeable as in some past springs, though females had progressed into their russet summer plumage. By May, however, things had started to look up: the males were singing and nest scrapes were being made.
On 5 June, the first egg was found. Within a week, two breeding pairs had produced clutches – one of three and one of four. The latter looked a potentially more viable prospect than the former, which appeared a bit chalky and soft shelled.
The team had to wait and watch as the eggs were transferred to humidity-controlled incubators to give any embryos within them the best chance of developing. Eventually, the eggs were candled to check for development. The team had been careful not to count its spoonies before they hatched: previous experience with breeding waders at Slimbridge suggested that eggs were often not fertile the first year.
The results of the candling exceeded expectations, however: two of the eggs – one from each clutch – were fertile and appeared to be developing well. Even more excitingly, on Saturday 2 July, the first fertile egg hatched, followed a day later by the second. The team were elated at the sight of two healthy-looking, live chicks.
Sadly, however, even miracles like this are not guaranteed happy endings first time around. Neither chick survived for more than a couple of days, in spite of round the clock monitoring and care.
Even in the face of such sad news, the team have several reasons to remain upbeat and hopeful for the future of spoon-billed sandpiper, both in the wild and at Slimbridge. The fact that fertile eggs were laid and hatched this year is a huge milestone for the Gloucestershire-based captive breeding programme, and even as the crew was coming to terms with the demise of the Slimbridge chicks, they received news from fellow project workers in Russia that the first of this year’s chicks had hatched at base camp in Meinypil’gyno, 4,500 miles away. What’s more, spoon-billed sandpipers have recently been discovered breeding at a spot in Kamchatka to south of Chukotka, New Zealand