Passengers, working with researchers
onboard one of Heritage Expeditions
recent Russian Far East voyages, have
joined an elite group, being one of the
privileged few to have ever sighted a
Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
One of the world’s rarest and most
endangered birds, the Spoon-billed
Sandpiper breeds only in Northern
Kamchatka and Chukotka, and its whopping
8,000 kilometre migration route takes it
along the East Asian-Australasian flyway
each year from Russia to Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh.
On Heritage’s most recent expedition, researchers, aided by guests, discovered a
previously unknown breeding population, a coup for bird lovers worldwide as it is believed
that only 200 breeding pairs now exist.
“If this decline continues, these amazing birds won’t be
around for much longer,” said Evgeny Syroechkovskiy of
Birds Russia.
If you are a bird enthusiast, and would like the chance
to spot a Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Heritage Expeditions
will run another 15-day ‘In the Wake of Bering – Search
for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper’ voyage departing from
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy on 24 June 2012 – see your
travel agent for details, or call 1800 143 585.
