After flying thousands of kilometres from faraway Bangladesh
and New Zealand via the Yellow Sea, the shorebirds of the East Asian
Flyway complete their northward migration. They touch down in the Arctic
Russia and Alaska to breed
In
May and June, birds such as the endangered spoon-billed sandpiper and
red knot fill the air of the Russian tundras with their mating calls and
display flights. But why travel so far to raise the next generation
Presenter
Ann Jones also discovers why Russian and British conservationists are
taking eggs from the nests of the spoon-billed sandpiper, the most
endangered shorebirds in the world, in a last ditch effort to save the
species from extinction.
Finally, with the
mating season finished and a new generation ready to migrate for the
first time, we follow the incredible non-stop flight of nine days by the
bar-tailed godwit, as it migrates south from Alaska all the way to New
Zealand. The record-breaking species is helped by somehow being able to
sense the weather patterns across the entire Pacific Ocean.
The
series is a co-production from the BBC World Service and Australian ABC
Radio National. The sound recordings from Russia and Alaska were
provided by the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology.
Image: Spoon-billed sandpiper chick in Chukotka, NE Russia. Credit: Nicky Hiscock.
