Spotlight: Not a spoon, but maybe a hammer, filter, or microphone
Info
Pages
91 – 92
Published
1 August 17
Authors
Deborah M. Buehler
DOI
10.18194/ws.00079
Correspondence
Deborah M. Buehler
Outreach Editor ‘Wader Study’, Research and Data Analyst, University of Toronto, Canada
Files
Public Files
“The Spoon-billed Sandpiper is a small wader that breeds in NE Russia and winters in SE Asia. It is one of the world’s best known waders, despite being one of the world’s rarest birds, but it would be pretty plain if not for its distinctive spatulate bill. It is this bill that fascinates birders and bird scientists alike, because the Spoon-billed Sandpiper is the only wader species in the world to have evolved a spoon-shaped bill – and that raises the tantalizing question: Why?”
Spotlight focuses on the paper in this issue by Kelly and colleagues describing the foraging behaviour and feeding techniques of Spoon-billed Sandpipers around the annual cycle.