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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

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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.