Press releases

MINSK, 17 May (BelTA) - The world’s oldest Terek Sandpiper (Xenus cinereus) lives in Belarus, BelTA learned from public organization APB-BirdLife Belarus.

“On 13 May, specialists of a bird banding station in Turov discovered a Terek Sandpiper when checking the nets in the evening. This bird is rare for Belarus (there is even a monument to this bird in Turov). But it is precisely this bird that has become perhaps the rarest: it had a 17-year-old ring on its leg. This makes it the oldest Terek Sandpiper in the world,” APB-BirdLife Belarus said. During its life the bird flew about 200,000km. Until now the known maximum was 16 years. That record was registered in Finland.

Employees of the Research Center for Bioresources of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, who are working at the banding station in Turov this season, examined old records. It turned out that the Terek Sandpiper was ringed in a meadow near the village of Zapesochie on 21 June 1999. The ornithologists had an encounter with the bird in 2005 and 2011. The fourth meeting took place in May 2016 and made the bird the oldest Terek Sandpiper in the world.

Terek Sandpipers nest from Finland to Chukotka. The bird winters in East Africa.