Threatened birds hatched
More than a dozen critically-endangered spoon-billed sandpipers brought from the Russian tundra as eggs have successfully hatched in the UK, conservationists have revealed.
The sandpiper is one of the world’s most threatened bird species. The 100 pairs left in the wild could be extinct within five to 10 years.
Experts at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Gloucestershire started a breeding scheme to try to preserve them.
Last year, eggs were incubated and hatched in Russia. But because of difficulties in transporting live birds, this year they decided to collect and bring the eggs to the UK before they hatched.