Trip reports

"Waders, Waders Everywhere"

Tuesday, 7 April 2009

In his talk, Chris Ward set out to show that waders appear in different forms all over the world. Many of our winter visitors are on migration from Siberia to Africa and our estuaries are important feeding stations. Up to 300,000 birds have been counted on The Wash. Some of our residents, like curlew and redshank breed inland and winter on the coast. They are all ground nesting, laying 3-4 eggs in a scrape and the chicks are mature as soon as they are born.

However, variations of common waders can be found in many countries of the world. The American oystercatcher does eat oysters as it has a larger bill. There are also oystercatchers in Chile and New Zealand. Varieties of lapwing can be found in Australia and Goa, plovers in America and the Andes, stilts in New Zealand and so on. The whole evening was a wonderful example of how species adapt to climate and habitat around the world.