Evgeny Evgenyevich Syroechkovsky 18 May 1968 – 25 January 2022 On 25 January 2022 Spoonie conservation lost its inspirational leader long before his time. Early in his career Evgeny specialised on arctic geese but in the early 2000s he started working on Spoonies and they soon rivalled geese for his attention and passion. If there is one person who personified the fight to save Spoonies it was Evgeny, Zhenya to his friends. At a time when most bird conservationists thought that Spoonies were just a species that was a highly specialised wader with a small population, Zhenya and Christoph Zöckle ..read more

An update from Nigel Jarrett and team It’s been awhile since the last update on the spoon-billed sandpiper population at WWT Slimbridge not least because 2020 was a year of ups and downs, and another when we learned more about the ex situ management of this special species. One of the 2019 hatched chicks showing off his first winter plumage. Photo by Jodie Clements, August 2020. We went into the 2020 breeding season with potentially four adult breeding pairs and one adult male, all aged eight or nine years, and the two immature, 2019-hatched, males. The weeks leading up to the breeding seaso ..read more

Before I tell you about the the progress of the 2021 season for the captive spoonie population at in the UK and the headstarting team in Russia, I want to transport you back 10 years where these ambitious projects were started and concieved, respectively. Below you will find an article from issue 178 of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust Waterlife magazine published late 2011, an in-the-moment account of the conservation status of spoon-billed sandpiper and the immediate actions taken to reduce their rate of decline. I hope this wets your appetite for posts to come… (Click the images or open in ..read more

An update from Christoph Zöckler Dear all, I hope you are all well. Please find the latest SBS newsletter No 24. It has been added to our SBS TF page. Here is the link: https://www.eaaflyway.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SBS-Newsletter-No-24-May-2021-web.pdf All the best, Christoph Dr Christoph Zöckler SBS TF Coordinator 24th edition of the SBS Task Force Newsletter, May 2021 ..read more

An update from Christoph Zöckler Dear all, Some weekend reading for you. Please find the new issue at the link below: https://www.eaaflyway.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/SBS-Newsletter-Nov-2020-web.pdf All the best, Christoph Dr Christoph Zöckler SBS TF Coordinator 23rd edition of the SBS Task Force Newsletter, Nov 2020 ..read more

Sleepy Spoonies. Photo by Jodie Clements Once again this year we are experiencing a super-hot summer! Seeing as the Slimbridge Spoonies can’t migrate to the wetlands of China like their wild counterparts, we have to bring the wetlands to them. Current temperatures in the United Kingdom actually match well to where they would be on migration (around the Yellow Sea) according to their artificial photoperiod. However the spoon-billed sandpiper facility reaches higher temperatures that we need to manage. It is beneficial to give them opportunities for cooler areas should they seek it. Humidity l ..read more

An update from Nikolay Yakushev 7th July 2020 Female ‘lime 36’ ready to lay her egg. Photo by Nikolay Yakushev. This field season is one of the most unusual for our team because of the ongoing covid pandemic. In the past when we saw an atypical season, it was due to the weather. All of the team members had to follow complex procedures on our way to our field site in Chukotka, to make sure that we did not inadvertently bring the virus to the local village. The hardest aspect of our work this season is the absence of our international colleagues. Even though we, the Russian team, managed on ou ..read more

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’ margin is going straight to NGO Spoon-billed Sandpiper in China, helping to protect the Yellow Seas mudflats, a key staging region for the Spoonies and many other migratory wader species. You can find some of Szabolcs’ products by clicking here.     ‘Chasing Spoon-billed Sandpipers by the Yellow Sea ..read more

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 affect the way the expedition was implemented. The global pandemic may have forced countries to close their borders but very fortunately domestic flights within Russia continued! Flights were booked and the journey began… before leaving Moscow, all members were tested for the corona virus and were self-isolating ..read more

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 getting reports despite the lock down. 2019 headstarted bird ‘6A’. Photo by Tao He. Normally we would be out in the field studying the migration of Knot, Turnstone and Sanderling in Delaware Bay in the USA but these are not normal times. During this time of lockdown the spoonie work goes on round the world and each d ..read more