Tagged bird finally reaches Hvanneyri!

Hi folks. Another non-brent update on Greenland white-fronts from Hvanneyri, Iceland. It has been a very busy week as more team members arrived, including Kerry Mackie, for catching. After a frustrating first couple of days, Kerry and the team caught seven white-fronts yesterday. Catching during early and mid-April will be essential in determining arrival condition in Iceland. Because of the mild spring (and winter), most white-fronts appear to be in exceptional shape. In fact, we've looked at data from previous years (to the early 80s) and thus far, birds seem to be ahead by two weeks! They've put on so much weight already, many sleep the day away in the fields...almost unheard of for geese in Iceland during spring!

Another exciting piece of news. Alyn Walsh, Larry Griffin, and I put on 20 GPS/accelerometer tags at wintering sites in Ireland and Scotland this winter. The tags take one GPS fix/day and record a behavioural trace every six minutes. Tags are meant to last just over one year to cover the entire annual cycle. On Wednesday, Rich Price (Exeter MSc student) spotted the first tagged bird here in Hvanneyri! T3U (pictured) was collared/tagged on 12 March 2012 in Wexford, Ireland. I've only started to scan through the behavioural traces, but there is much to be gained even from just one month of data! It looks like he left Wexford 1 April--riding SE winds--flying 17 hours straight, roosting on the Atlantic for the night and reaching the southern coast of Iceland the following day with an additional 9-hr. flight. The next 10 days were spent feeding and making short 3-hr. flights around the southern lowlands (east of Selfoss) before he arrived at Hvanneyri at 10:35 Wednesday morning. It is still early in the staging period, so we're hopeful for the arrival of a few more tagged birds. I'll provide somewhat regular updates as the spring progresses. Beautiful day here (5°C and sunny) so I should get out! More soon!

After the neap comes spring

Following a number of non-Brent news. Two previous days I have not found any Brent Geese at Álftanes when searching for them around high tide in the afternoon. Today they were there again. A flock of 71 in the innermost part of Skógtjörn was foraging on a saltmarsh at high tide. There I found three marked birds: a pair with only metal on right and yellow on left -ZmY + -VmY and CPLY with an unmarked partner. There were two Brent Geese in a flock of Eiders on the outer part of Hlidsnes peninsula and 33 at Eskines in Gardabaer. A total of 110 today.

Day one with the Whitefronts

Miserable weather up here, but a good first day nonetheless. About 1000 birds in the fields around Hvanneyri and about 500 in the Myrar area. Sighting of the day goes to Richard Price (University of Exeter MSc student) who when checking through his photos (see right) found H6C. Mitch (Weegman) the PhD student on the project checked the data base to find it was a male bird caught on April 23rd 1999 in Hvanneyri as an adult!! This means he is over 15 years old. He has been seen a number of times over the years wintering regularly on the Wexford slobs, but most of his sightings are from here. He was hanging around with a bird that was likely to have been his dad for several years in the early 00s, but we do not think he has ever had a long term partner. Stu is heading back to the UK on Friday but Mitch will send updates over the coming weeks. Stephen Lang (MSc student) is carrying out his research project on these geese and will provide some project updates as well.

Stu, Mitch, Stephen & Richard