23 June 2011 A post-breakfast meeting allocated areas that have not been covered many times or at all to each person. I chose to head to the marshes and edge of the hills taking in at least one nest site from 2005. I was dropped off by Egor and headed out alone for the day checking th

22 June 2011 As far as news is concerned the most important event today was all of us attending a presentation at the community centre. We prepared some images for use beforehand. At 1650 we headed over and set up. Pavel introduced us all and explained all about the project from when

21 June 2011 I woke as Nige and Simon were leaving for breakfast. We have a flexible system where one or all three can go and join the others but there is only room at the table for six at a time. If one or more does not go then the others will bring bag some porridge. This morning ju

20 June 2011 I was woken by Nige at 0600 he had still not gone to bed keeping an eye on the temperatures of the eggs. My wife had tried to Skype call, it was intermittent and we lost connection several times. I was delighted with being able to hear the voices of my family. I had a cof

19 June 2011 Late afternoon Nige dropped Simon at the foot of the hills so he could search he returned for me as I was going to lead him to a Dunlin nest later. Pavel, Egor and Nikolay were all searching the moraine hill territories for SBS nests. Jochen went with Gerrit to the east e

19 June 2011 More pictures have been added to the gallery page. The gallery contains images of bird sightings, people we work and live with and members of the team.

19 June 2011 A collection of images that we have collected of the spoon-billed sandpiper. All images by Martin McGill/Jochen Dierschke   [slideshow]

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