New captive breeding population of Spoon-billed Sandpiper's in UK

I hope I'm wrong, but I do find myself wondering whether Slimbridge isn't too far south for this high Arctic wader, and its summer days too short. WWT waited years before breeding Bewick's swan, another high latitude species.

What do others think?
 
New captive breeding population of Spoon-billed Sandpiper

The original Bewick's were wild-caught and would probably have taken years to settle down sufficiently to lay. Hand-reared birds are usually a better proposition. It may be that WWT are going to increase the hours of 'daylight' for these birds.
 
Are there any waders which are considered self-sustaining in captivity? Many facilites exhibit them but not a great deal successfully breed them. I know there are several private breeders who do well with them.
 
New Captive breeding population of Spoon-billed Sandpipers

I would suggest that the UK captive population of Avocets is self-sustaining, or nearly so, and some of the exotic lapwing species not far behind.
 
Avocets indeed, also Northern Lapwings are quite common birds in private collections. Golden plovers are as well on the rise and so are Ruffs and Little Ringed Plovers. Like Diceroprhinus said there are quite some species that do excellent in the hands of private breeders. I know that several public collections in the Netherlands and Belgium get their birds from them.
 
Waders, if not thrown in mixed aviaries, breed well, which is surprising considering their specialized lifestyle (feeding, migrations etc). They do well in private breeders and research institutions. I remember a research study which bred large numbers of Ruffs in aviaries to investigate genetics of male plumage.

For spoon-billed sandpiper, however, decisive will be protecting their few remaining passage and wintering grounds - almost all tidal mudflats in whole of East Asia were developed or disturbed.

BTW, incredibly cute bird when seen closely - almost like baby emperor penguin.
 
Slimbridge opened a new wader aviary earlier this year. They started with avocets and redshanks, and they have just added two black-winged stilts and a group of ringed plovers, which were in a smaller release cage inside the avairy when I visited on Monday. The new birds looked to be in immature plumage, so they may have been captive bred in other collections.
The main waterfowl breeding efforts at Slimbridge are now in off-show aviaries and I doubt if the spoon-billed sandpipers will ever be seen by the public, except on CCTV.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
Slimbridge opened a new wader aviary earlier this year. They started with avocets and redshanks, and they have just added two black-winged stilts and a group of ringed plovers
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Knowing how aggressive Avocets are to other species in the wild, particularly when breeding, I wonder how they get on in a mixed exhibit, or rather, how the other species fare?
 
The main waterfowl breeding efforts at Slimbridge are now in off-show aviaries and I doubt if the spoon-billed sandpipers will ever be seen by the public, except on CCTV.
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I guess you're right, Alan. They're too important to risk disturbance, and to the average visitor they'd just be unremarkable small brownish birds.
 
Pertinax said:
Knowing how aggressive Avocets are to other species in the wild, particularly when breeding, I wonder how they get on in a mixed exhibit, or rather, how the other species fare?
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I agree that there are likely to be problems. I think the dominant pair of avocets will want to dominate everything else. I sure the WWT have plans to cope, probably by pulling all the eggs.

Alan
 
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