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

8 June 2011 Usual routine for morning, I head out in the afternoon with Nige heading east to the base of the spit, a broad sweep of gravel interspersed with creeks and pools. We set off on a route but have to walk around many stretches as they are too deep. Eventually we reach the lak

7 June 2011 Getting out to search for more SBS, today? We have established a routine this week it is likely to change when we search for nests but it is… Get up after very late night to bed…some of us 0300 in the morning or get up early 0600-0630 largely due to slow intern

5 June 2011 It is still very windy and cold but less so than the last few days, after breakfast I got ready and picked up the Quad bike (ATV) from the storage container. I headed west of the village to check the spits that had thawed to see if any Spoon-billed Sandpipers were present,