This week has seen a couple of major steps forward.
Rings
First our Norwegian friend Anders, who is a qualified bird
ringer has taken delivery of the rings we will need. The head of the Norwegian
ringing scheme, Alf Tore Mjos, has put together a superb set of rings to cover
any type of bird that we might catch—so a very big thank you to Alf Tore. You
will see a picture of Anders checking through the rings—all 10,000 of them!! He
is also working on a schedule to show us English ringers which Norwegian rings
are needed by each bird species—thanks Anders!
Equipment
Next, our key contact in Norway, Tormod Amundsen, reports
that all of the ringing kit that we have
been gathering together in England , has arrived in Norway. This is a
bigger deal than it at first appears. Our concept all along has been to
establish sufficient ringing kit in Varanger so that in future, other ringers
from anywhere in the world could use it on similar visits to ours in order to
increase our knowledge of the birds of Varanger and where they migrate to. This
has meant we have had to ship pretty well EVERY bit of equipment such groups are
likely to need—over 70 ringing poles to support mist nets; lots of portable
walk-in traps for wading birds; tools, wire netting, hand nets and lots of
other stuff are now in Norway in a form that means they can be moved around
relatively easily by car/van.
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