31 May 2018
Conservationists have hatched 15 chicks of an endangered species on the RSPB's UK "red list" after rescuing eggs from muddy farmland during spring floods.
The black-tailed godwits, of which there are fewer than 50 breeding pairs, are being hand-reared at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in Norfolk.
The trust's Rebecca Lee said: "A number of the eggs were in such bad condition that they resembled muddy potatoes."
The ground-nesting birds' eggs "had no chance of survival in the wild".
Conservationists teamed up with farmers to rescue 32 eggs after the godwits were forced by flooding away from the safety of the Nene Washes in The Fens in Cambridgeshire.
Ms Lee, who is the trust's principal species conservation officer, said: "Conditions were so bad we were concerned that they might not survive."
They used a technique called "head-starting", which involves collecting the eggs from the wild under a Natural England licence and hand-rearing them.
It is the second time they have successfully reared godwit chicks at the trust's reserve at Welney, in Norfolk, as part of Project Godwit, a five-year partnership with the RSPB.
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