Sociable Lapwing
Surfbirds News: RSPB Archives
The tagging project began last year when scientists from the RSPB and Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan fitted satellite-tracking devices to three birds on their breeding grounds on the barren steppe expanses of central Kazakhstan.
Their journey will be featured on BBC Radio 4’s World on the Move series, being broadcast on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings.
Dr Rob Sheldon, an RSPB ecologist, said: 'The fact that these birds have reached Sudan is remarkable because we had no idea that they would fly that far.
Sociable Lapwing © Rony Livne, from the surfbirds galleries
'A Sudanese team is going out to find them this week and if they see more birds, our efforts to help them will become more complicated but also more gratifying. Their appearance in Sudan is fantastic news and has turned the whole tracking project into a hugely exciting conundrum.”
The sociable lapwing, closely related to the northern lapwing seen in the UK, was given the highest threat status by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 2003, after numbers fell 95 per cent to just 200 pairs.
|
