26 May 2011 Again I got up early with tightly packed bags for a chopper flight at 0900….put off to 1100……cancelled at 1200….again, sitting around waiting for the heads up and once again a big fat negative. The sun was out and we could see the mountains in the d

25 May 2011 Hanging about until 0900, no helicopter flight, review later……..1100, still no flight…..1200 flight cancelled. I took a walk out through the airport marsh…2 displaying Long-billed Dowitcher and 2 more in the river marsh. 7 Pacific Eiders, 80 Black B

24 May 2011 Another sunny day, good news as the cargo finally arrived and we went to the hangar to sort out which equipment stays in Anadyr and which is to be loaded onto the helicopter to take to Meinypilgyno. It had been battered a bit since Nige sent it in late April from Slimbridg

23 May 2011 I woke up in the night feeling bad and took some medication, I spent the morning recovering from the migraine, In the late afternoon Nige and I went for a long Tundra walk, we saw a pair of Pectoral Sandpipers, 13 flew in and landed next to us with 3 and 8 seen later. Also

22 May 2011 I woke with a migraine, not a great start to the day, Nige and I were getting up and ready when a knock at the door revealed seven border officials. We spent much of the morning with them, they checked out our details and later we were told we could go about our business a

21 May 2011 I headed out across the Tundra during the morning with Nige and Jochen, a close Willow Grouse walked ahead of us. A Short-eared Owl and Arctic Skua were dominating the area, Long-billed Dowitchers, c200 in total were flying over calling and displaying. Otherwise it was a s

20 May 2011 We woke at around 0630, I got ready to go out, I needed a long walk to make up for the day spent inside hanging around for nothing yesterday, Nige was spending the morning working on his laptop. I got my outdoor gear on and headed out across the Tundra from the airport. On

19 May 2011 Woke at 0600 drank tea and got ready for the day, we visited the small shop which is at one end of the accommodation. Our current routine now is to buy a drinking yoghurt, some bread if they have any or breadsticks if not and eat it with cheese triangles or salami for brea

18 May 2011 Flight cancelled for today so no equipment to sort, I headed out with Simon to count birds locally and explore. The snow in the air and bright light made it extremely difficult to watch birds, we needed to keep sunglasses on and found it hard to see them clearly. I had sto