Phil Palmer writes: It’s spring on the tundra, and as the snow melts it reveals the autumn crowberry crop, still available as food for the first migrant birds. The Moss Campion is opening in pink domes, willow catkins are furring up and the dwarf rhododendron budding. Notable sighting

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

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

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

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

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