18 June 2011 Nige and I spent the day searching for nests with Jochen, each day we partner, go it alone or form a group to search, we covered several over hills, marsh and gravel,  and employed a treble transect technique, forming a line with the three of us spaced out and walking the

17 June 2011 Today as usual we all had a different area to cover, we are moved around so we all get a change. I was paired with Simon to take the quad into the hills to check over a few areas. It was quite a challenge getting the machine through marshes in particular but the route is

16 June 2011 I felt sickened  today, to see one of the birds I had been watching dead, to know it had laid eggs in the same small gulley where I watched a pair together in the sun days before and saw the male on guard was rather sad. Natural predators are a part of what happens, it ha

15 June 2011 Martin reports: Need to catch up a bit, two full on days! On a downer over the spoon-billed sandpiper still. We need some good news. Had some seriously close bear encounters and saw a wolf today. The bears are scary. I’m not sure what they would do, but we kept our distan

14 June 2011 Martin took a break from blogging today and handed the reigns over to Nigel Jarrett for the day. We got an upsetting message from Nigel yesterday. It comes on top of all the stresses of trying to build a safe rearing facility for one of the world’s rarest birds in a very

13 June 2011 Martin reports: It was a public holiday for locals; another gorgeous, sunny, but still cool day for us. Simon went off with Pavel and Egor catching red knot for ringing and trying to locate nests. They spent all day out there using a mist net to catch them. Poles are carr

Sunday 12th June Martin reports: A bright sunny day. Today we headed out onto the spit with the quad bike. Simon and I took a radio and did a range check. It was connecting to about 2.5kms. We rode the 15kms to the end of the spit stopping off to check marshy ground adjacent to the la

11 June 2011 Woken many times in the night by dogs and drunks, Nige was up at 0600 and trying to Skype home, I was woken by his frustration, he and his wife were desperately trying to have a conversation which was impossible, all I heard was ‘can you hear me, can you hear me know, wha

10 June 2011 I went to breakfast without Nige and Simon, we had a lot of planning and set up a meeting at our place to discuss immediate issues. Nicolai thinks the birds in the study area are 4-5 days away from laying eggs, we all agree that it is best that we stand down until then to

9 June 2011 Oh dear….late start, missed breakfast, I was trying to email WWT when Liza knocked, she had brought porridge for the larry lightweights who had not got up for breakfast, the Pacific air and tequila had taken its toll. Apart from the reaction to celebratory spirits on