Slender-billed Curlew

This Critically Endangered species, now nearly extinct (if not already so) was once numerous, breeding in central Asia and wintering in the Mediterranean. The last records anywhere were a single vagrant in Northumberland, UK, in 1998, and one in winter in Oman in 1999; the last breeding record was back in 1924, near Tara in the Omsk-Novosibirsk region of Russia. If it becomes extinct, it will be the first European bird to die out since the Great Auk in 1844.