Spoon-billed Sandpiper
For three years I was involved with the searches organised by Birds Russia, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Recovery Taskforce and Heritage Expeditions to try and locate new breeding sites for the critically endangered Spoon-billed Sandpiper in the Russian Far East. In 2011 we truly 'struck gold' and I was lucky enough to be leading the ground team that stumbled across two pairs of sandpipers at an unknown site. A totally unforgettable and amazing day on the Russian tundra !!!
In this series of photos, we see an adult sandpiper which walked straight towards us and then sat down on a nest we knew nothing about less than 6 metres away!!!!
Sadly since then we have spent many days on the tundra searching other locations but have had no further success. This really is a critically endangered bird.......
Special thanks must, however, go to those who organised the expedition, especially Rodney Russ of Heritage Expeditions who made the searches possible.
