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

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

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

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

17 May 2011 Both of us tried to stay awake until 2100 but as soon as we led down at 1800 we slept, I awoke at 0100 and got back to sleep at 0330, we both got up at 0530, hungry and thirsty, we went to see if we could get a drink from the airport but it was closed, we had been advised

15 May 2011 – 1400hrs We met up with a number of our expedition party at Liza’s flat at 1400, this consisted of, Simon, Garit, Grigor and, the charming Evgeny, who talked through what to expect and the rough plan of the expedition. It was very inspiring and whetted the appetite