The next Varanger adventure

This Friday 5th August five of us will be flying out from Manchester for the first leg of our long journey to Arctic Norway. We will be bird ringing on our site at Nesseby on the North bank of the Varanger Fjord for 10 days. The team of 5 this year are Dave, big Col (little Col could not make it), Charlie and two virgins Scott and Paul who have ringed in the Pasvik Valley bordering Russia last year but never at Nesseby. The makings of an excellent experienced team.

The whole purpose of our expeditions is to help our sponsor Tormod Amundsen of http://www.biotope.no promote Varanger as a birding destination. Without his help and generosity this project would never have got off the ground.

In previous years we have caught small numbers of waders and our Norwegian friends have always intimated an earlier visit to Varanger would be beneficial because our normal visit times sees the start of wader migration and the number of birds start to reduce very quickly. The unknown quantity for us is we might be a little early for the start of migration of breeding passerines, in past years we have timed it perfectly and 350 birds in one day was not unusual.

The team this year as mentioned above is the motley crew pictured below. We would love to see anyone who is in the area for a chat as to what we do and why. Our ringing site is just near Nesseby church.

Dave Clifton

Paul Ashworth

Charlie Sargent

Colin Hewitt

Scott Petrik

As in all ringing situations the weather conditions play a big part.Too much rain and wind often means we cannot ring at all. The weather forecast for our visit at the moment is looking good so fingers crossed and if you are in the area we hope to see you on the banks of the Varangur Fjord at Nesseby.

Further information is also available at: 

http://birdringers.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/varanger-arctic-norway_2.html