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wadertales

wadertales
Iceland’s waders in decline It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in...
a month ago
20
a month ago
It is estimated that 1.5 million pairs of waders breed in Iceland, most of which spend the winter in West Europe and West Africa. There is a lot of guesswork associated with this number and little national monitoring information to assess whether species are doing well or badly....
wadertales
The call of the Whimbrel The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a...
a month ago
25
a month ago
The seven-note whistle of the Whimbrel is a classic sound, welcomed by Icelanders at the end of a long, dark winter. These wonderful waders are responding badly to recent changes to Iceland’s landscape, such as the ever-expanding areas of non-native forestry and power...
wadertales
How are migration sites connected? Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering...
2 months ago
86
2 months ago
Which are the most important migration sites and how are breeding, moulting, staging and wintering locations linked? Forty-four authors have collaborated to bring together ringing, colour-ringing and GPS tracking data in a paper entitled Site-level connectivity identified from...
wadertales
Learning lessons from Slender-billed Curlews The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct,...
3 months ago
54
3 months ago
The 2024 Ibis paper, recommending that the Slender-billed Curlew should be classified as Extinct, tells a sad tale. We now know that, by the time that the Slender-billed Curlew Action Plan was published in 1996, it was already too late to save the species. Resources expended...
wadertales
Broad-billed Sandpiper: Now a Red-listed wader A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since...
3 months ago
61
3 months ago
A dedicated team of Scottish bird ringers has been studying breeding waders in northern Norway since 1993. One of the focal species of their fieldwork is the secretive Broad-billed Sandpiper, an unusual taiga wader which nests on low-lying tussocks embedded in floating mats of...
wadertales
Counting breeding shorebirds using listening devices With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments...
3 months ago
62
3 months ago
With more demands upon the space that is currently occupied by breeding waders, from developments such as wind turbines and monoculture forestry, conservationists are often asked to assess the potential effects of landscape change. Do passive acoustic devices have a role to play...
wadertales
How do wader chicks respond to being handled? Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they...
5 months ago
61
5 months ago
Every wader researcher knows that their actions can have negative consequences for the birds they are studying. Given that most shorebird species are in trouble or causing concern, conservation science is a tricky balancing act between ‘need to understand’ and ‘disturbance’. In...
wadertales
Flexible nesting behaviour In April and May, tens of thousands of Black-tailed Godwits return to Iceland, having spent the...
6 months ago
57
6 months ago
In April and May, tens of thousands of Black-tailed Godwits return to Iceland, having spent the summer in Western Europe, particularly Britain & Ireland but also France, Portugal and Spain. For early arrivals, the conditions they encounter vary markedly between years. In a cold...
wadertales
How successful are headstarted waders We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can...
6 months ago
62
6 months ago
We know that headstarting (hatching eggs in captivity and rearing chicks through to fledging) can boost the number of young waders in a population. However, the sustainability of this intervention is dependent upon several factors that apply after the point of release. A paper in...
wadertales
Juvenile settlement in Black-tailed Godwits Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked...
6 months ago
61
6 months ago
Adult waders tend to be exceptionally consistent in their use of time and space, with marked individuals turning up on the same estuaries at the same time year after year, as discussed in the Whimbrel blog ‘Whimbrel: time to leave’. How do these patterns become established? Do...
wadertales
Conservation beyond boundaries When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be...
a year ago
35
a year ago
When an environmental impact assessment concludes that only a small number of shorebirds will be affected by a new airport, because relatively small flocks are counted during field surveys, is there an assumption that the birds encountered are always the same individuals? What if...
wadertales
Why count shorebirds? A tale from Portugal The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
The Sado Estuary is one of Portugal’s most important wetlands – a key link in the chain of sites connecting Africa and the Arctic, on the East Atlantic Flyway. In a paper in Waterbirds, João Belo and colleagues analyse changes in numbers of waders wintering in this estuary over...
wadertales
Curlew nest survival The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
The Eurasian Curlew is designated as ‘Near-Threatened’ by IUCN/BirdLife. It is Red-listed in the UK,  largely due to a rapid decline in breeding numbers. In this context, the fact that there are a few pink squares (indicating increased numbers) on the map showing breeding...
wadertales
WaderTales blogs in 2022 Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped...
over a year ago
36
over a year ago
Here are brief summaries of the sixteen WaderTales blogs that were published in 2022. I have grouped the blogs into sections; problems with trees, more research from Iceland, Curlews, news from the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, tracking and updates. As ever, I am grateful to...
wadertales
Inland feeding by coastal godwits Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
Species such as Dunlin and Knot are well-served by conservation measures that aim to protect estuaries but the same is not necessarily true for Black-tailed Godwits. In a 2022 paper in the journal Wader Study, Clément Jourdan and colleagues describe the movements of ten tagged...
wadertales
What happens when the mud disappears? The Yellow Sea provides important ‘service stations’ for shorebirds on the East Asian-Australasian...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
The Yellow Sea provides important ‘service stations’ for shorebirds on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, especially on their way north to Russian and Alaskan breeding areas. In a thought-provoking paper in Biological Conservation, Xiaodan Wang and colleagues consider how...
wadertales
UK waders: “Into the Red” If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most...
over a year ago
32
over a year ago
If you ask British birdwatchers to name the eleven wader species that are causing the most conservation concern in the UK, they would probably not include Dunlin. Curlew may well be top of their lists, even though the most recent population estimate is 58,500 breeding pairs, but...
wadertales
A Whimbrel’s year There’s a lot to fit into twelve months if you’re a Whimbrel. In the last paper from his PhD, Camilo...
over a year ago
38
over a year ago
There’s a lot to fit into twelve months if you’re a Whimbrel. In the last paper from his PhD, Camilo Carneiro assesses whether Icelandic Whimbrel can always manage to complete the annual cycle of migrate-breed-fatten-migrate-moult-fatten in just 365 days. What happens if a pair...
wadertales
Will head-starting work for Curlew? 83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number...
over a year ago
34
over a year ago
83 captive-reared Curlew were released successfully in 2019, over 130 in 2021 and a similar number in 2022 but this does not mean that head-starting is a solution to England’s Curlew problems. We don’t yet know the proportion of youngsters that survive the difficult ‘teenage...
wadertales
When mates behave differently Iceland’s 40,000 Oystercatchers are an interesting mix of resident birds and migrants, providing an...
over a year ago
35
over a year ago
Iceland’s 40,000 Oystercatchers are an interesting mix of resident birds and migrants, providing an ideal system in which to study the costs and benefits of the two options, and to try to work out what influences whether an individual becomes a ‘resident’ or a ‘migrant’. I’ve...