Surveys from Belomorsk towards Poyakonda along the coasts of the White Sea

Connection via GPRS continues... We are now back to the Ryashkov island of Kandalaksha state nature reserve after one week travel by sailing boat from Belomorsk via Kuzova islands and the Kem’ scherres along the White Sea North Karelian coast (and islands) – also via the Kem-Ludy cluser of Kandalaksha state nature reserve, via the Chupa settlement, via Kartesh biological station of the Saint-Petersburg Zoological Institute and the Biological station of Moscow State University close to Poyakonda settlement.
The trip turned great – thanks also to the team and to the weather – for Oystercatcher counts along the sample coastline, but also for general wider impressions on the wildlife values of the White Sea coasts. Therefore in the Russian blog I rather highlight not the Oystercatchers but the Eider Somateria mollissima males – migrating to the Onega bay for moulting; Velvet Scoter males flocks, Goldeneye males staging site in Kuzokotskaya bay, fantastic Arctic Tern colonies on smaller islands there, mix of Bearded and Ringed and a bit of Greenland Seals on the sea and exposed at the coasts.


For a change – a flock of Eider duck males instead of Oystercatchers and one picture with a map of the so far the best Oystercatcher area distant from the Kandalaksha reserve – Kuzokotskaya bay. With only one difference – Oystercatchers there are all un-ringed (and wechecked almost all that we met).