Sociable Lapwing
Surfbirds News: RSPB Archives
Rare birds reach Sudan after 50 year absence
Two sociable lapwings, satellite tagged in Kazakhstan last summer, have flown more than 5,000 miles to central Sudan where they are spending the winter before their return flight to breeding grounds in the central Asian republic.
The species is one of the smallest birds ever to carry a tracking device and its journey has revealed far more about its migration than scientists expected.
Sociable Lapwing © Rony Livne, from the surfbirds galleries
Only now are conservationists realising how important African countries are to sociable lapwings. There are few recent records of the birds in Africa but new surveys could find more. The last sighting of sociable lapwings so far south in Africa was by the RSPB’s Dr Mark Avery, who saw a small flock in Kenya 20 years ago.
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.
|
