The long road north.

9-10/09/17

From Pasvik, we have now drove the long journey north to the most eastern point of Norway. We arrived in Vardø yesterday evening and have been very busy since.

Along the Varangerfjord yesterday, we saw good numbers of both White-tailed Eagle and Rough-legged Buzzard, which were both seen regularly along the northern shoreline of the fjord. The 5 hour drive was punctuated by regular stops, including at another of our ringing sites at Nesseby.

The last few days however have seen a strong easterly wind develop, making it difficult to see many birds and keeping migration to a minimum. This wind has also impacted on our plans for our trip up north, with the strong winds preventing us from reaching Hornoya and helping to start up a new geolocator project on Leach’s Petrel.

We have however tried to look at the bright side and have highlighted lamping and gull ringing as the priorities of the trip. We hope to colour ring a few of the hundreds of Gulls in the harbour to broaden the current project which has been ongoing for a number of years. Additionally, we are looking at methods of catching Purple Sandpiper on Vardø island, to look at the feasibility of a colour ringing project which will help understand the movements of this species.

This started last night when 2 members of the team headed out in the middle of the night to see what was possible. The results were promising and a Purple Sandpiper was caught. With further refinements and practise, we hope we can improve on this.

As well as actual ringing, the team are also involved with scouting work to further the extent of the ‘arctic ringing’ project. We visited 2 sites around Vardø in the hope of developing them as future ringing sites. All seemed promising, with excellent habitat reminiscent of the very successful Nesseby site. We look forward to seeing how these develop in the future.

As the wind today has resulted in a mostly non ringing day, we spent much of the time exploring Vardø and an excursion to Hamningberg this evening looking for some arctic and tundra specialities. Large numbers of waders are currently roaming the beaches of the island, with many Sanderling, Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin and Ringed Plover. With many being juveniles, excellent views are possible! 

A number of very white Arctic Redpolls are present within the dwarf Willows, together with many migrant Bluethroats and Pipits. A Glaucous Gull joined one of the many Gull flocks and large number of seaducks are rafting off every side of the island.