How fake daylight and lots of sand and patience helped save the spoonie

The spoon-billed sandpiper has been brought back from the brink after a conservation programme in Gloucestershire

After eight years, conservationists have succeeded in helping spoon-billed sandpipers hatch chicks at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust headquarters in Gloucestershire.

The birds belong to the world's only captive flock of spoon-billed sandpipers, considered to be among the rarest of waders, and highly threatened. About 200 or so birds are thought to be left in the wild.