The team has collected the first eggs of the season, many more flagged birds have been seen and flooding continues to cause problems. Here’s the latest from Russia.
From Roland Digby
We collected the first clutch of eggs this week – four eggs were collected from the nest of Light green 10 and 05 and are now in an incubator. Hopefully this pair will relay and rear their own chicks in the wild this year as well.
First clutch of eggs collected, 12 June 2017.
To date, we have identified 11 spoonie pairs in the monitoring zone and a number of lone males and some other birds we think could be females but as yet have only been observed just after arrival feeding on the floods to the east in Angkavie and not encountered since. In addition, we suspect a secretive pair may be using an area at the foot of the morain hills, where the male has been observed but not the female. From his behaviour, he appears unpaired but given that last year the female was only observed once and he later appeared with chicks, there is a slight possibility she’s around but undetected.
As mentioned in the previous update, the flooding is something else this year. Lake Pekulneyskoe has flooded all of the surrounding low lying areas including the Monument marsh, where the current site for the release pen is under around 1.5m of water. Whilst on the other side of the monitoring zone, Lake Vaamychkyn has completely flooded all of the spits and marshes where spoonies breed around the area of the Western oil drills. Pavel and Nikolai have both said this is the most extensive flooding around the lakes since they have been coming out to the area. This has also made surveying rather difficult as we cannot yet access all areas – attempts are being made to open the river mouth now and once successful things should improve.
Awesome stuff, as ever, Roland. It’s difficult to imagine what it’s really like out there with the weather and flooding playing such a major part in every day life. It sure don’t look easy.
Take care and thanks for the update… keep being awesome.
Wonderful News Roland
Such amazing little birds You and the team must be so proud
Let’s all hope the waters retreat soon and the Spoonies can get to work!!!
Good Luck to you all this year
Thanks So Much for these updates Always thrilling to hear how everything is progressing
Christina Collie
It’s really amazing to see the great work done so far. It’s so exciting to see how the spoonies are progressing. Hope the flood resides really soon for the sake of all the birds there. Keep up the wonderful work!!!
What a wonderful report Roland. thank you so much for all the work you and the Birds Russia guys and gals are doing. So sorry you are being so hampered by the flooding though. I hope the weather is a bit warmer by now too. You are all amazing and THANK you from me for all your hard work on behalf of the waders using the Australasia/Asia Flyway. If we save the Spoonies we will help all the other waders using these areas.
Helena