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

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

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

4 June 2011 A wet day, I headed out and checked what we call the corrall area (old Reindeer handling station) with Simon, a couple of very wolf-like feral dogs were busy digging out Ground Squirrels from a burrow system, many of these dogs roam the area  and predate eggs and young. We

30 May 2011 Uncomfortable night as no pillow, my blow up one has punctured. After breakfast at Sveta’s house (local lady of the settlement who cooks breakfast and evening meals for us) we headed back to the house to continue house clearance and cleaning, the ‘incubation’ room was clea