Far away greetings to me from the White Sea Oystercatchers: 2009

Yesterday realised that good common friends returned back from the White Sea islands - seems with all the family challenges I will not be able to go there myself at all. Therefore the picture of A41 is of very special value. As told by Sergey Marey - they bred again at the Ryashkov southern coast close to the houses - and certainly used just the same stones on which I took the whole 2008 family...

I miss them, though they probably do not miss me at all - with more important business of chick rearing now.

Video from Russia Today also with Oystercatchers!

It is only today that I found this great video on Kandalaksha Reserve on YouTube.
As I see Ninburg in the film - it means the film is at least two summers owld.
And it is great! And in English!

Always in the Top!

Dear readers!

This is the blog for the Project
on Oystercatcher - Bird of the Year 2008 in the Netherlands - at the Russian White Sea.

It will operate from 20 May to 20 August 2008 and will only be devoted to this great bird.

It is for purpose in English - for the international community. For the Russian audience similar blog, but with different contents, will be updated in Russian.
Great fun is that the birds - in this case Oystercatchers - but in fact many many more - spend autumn, winter and spring in Europe and North Africa, and in summer come to breed to the Russian North. Learning on birds migrating between the two countries often means learning on people that live there - in different nature, different lives, and with different attitude to birds as well. By telling you the stories of individually marked Oystercatchers born / colour-ringed at the White Sea or the Netherlands or elsewhere but relevant , and flying to breed at the Russian White Sea I hope to tell you more on this area and people also.
At the same time, learning the stories in Russian the readers in my country will be able to know on the birds wintering areas, and on the people that look at them and care for them when they are away from Russia. For obvious reasons the date of this post will stay as 20 August 2008, but all the posts below will be dated correctly.
Though the Project is mainly linked to the fact that it is the Bird of the Year 2008 - and Oystercatchers link our countries literally and also indirectly - the blog will be maintained in English for a larger audience, but also omdat mijn Nederlands nog niet zo goed is.
Welcome with comments and questions!

20 Mei 2008 (with the date of 20 August)

Pre-migration club of Oystercatchers

Summer here at the White Sea, that is above the Arctic Circle, is short. Birds that did not breed, or failed, already accumulate in a so called “club” – in one of the three known areas in Kandalaksha bay of the White Sea (all within the nature reserve). On the 24th I visited one of these, where in former years the big flock reached the total of 420 Oystercatchers. I still remember from those times the fascinating memorized “video” of how they altogether fly off at high tide, and in a synchronous move with intense piping circle over the islands, gaining altitude, and then at a certain moment when they are at least 300-400 meters high – go westwards and disappear in the distance over the mountains of the Kola Peninsula. Saw it only twice in all my 25+ years with Oystercatchers at the White Sea. Obviously that is the real migration move.
Well, we will hardly see it this year, but the visit to the “club” from low to high tide, when the birds so-to-say concentrate from the enormous intertidal area to few stones emerged above the sea at fill tide is in a way “a day of big hunt”. They all show their legs, and I can sit quitely in the primitive hide and read the numbers of those colour-ringed.

The total of this year in this club was 175 birds (but it is not the only club and birds redistribute between them). Looking at the site I regretfully realise that canon-netting for ringing hardly has a chance here...

Most beloved 2008 Oystercatcher family

They just grew up in front of our eyes - mean in front of the nature reserve house on Ryashkov island where we live. In full tide both parents and two chicks were walking to-and-back-along the-coast... Piping when "kids" from hydrobiology group interfered at the intertidal zone. Finding rescue from Herring Gulls at the same time.

Now they can fly, and in spite of the fact that sex of the chicks is still unknown - they got the names (A50-orange is Senechka and 80-blue is Ilya) - same as the names of boys from the local city of Kandalaksha who help here on the island to research staff and who helped also in catching the two grown up chicks here.

Ringing still continues, and in the coming days we will also visit the islands where the largest pre-migration flock gathers as well.

Visual greetings to Rob Lambeck

The birds on these photos taken today in Luvenga settlement coast were in the Dutch hands…

It was in 1991 and 1993 that Rob Lambeck started individual colour-ringing of the breeding White Sea Oystercatchers (which I largely took over and expanded since 1997 till now) – and it was really great to find today two of “his” birds. Bluegreen rings on bird E-1 remain absolutely perfect, and the other bird shall be traced through the records still (or recaptured next year) as it lost one ring, and only has worn-off “0” plastic ring besides the usual steel that I failed to read as it stayed far even for a telescope user. I still have to trace the life stories of these two 19+ - year birds (at least 2008-1993 =15 plus 4 years age of first breeding), as the ringing data for Rob’s birds are not currently with me.

Additional great fun today was that in the same flock of non-breeders (or failed breeders) in Luvenga we saw an A16-orange Oystercatcher that I have ringed myself in July 2002 as a chick on Bolshoy Lomnishny island (over 10 km distance across the sea).

Seems that later in July, when more birds join this flock before migration, it is worth to re-visit the area for another check on colour-ringed Oystercatchers!

P.S. On the second photo E-1 bird is the most left of the four; it is not possible to read the rings on the photo, but believe me they are in perfect quality still!

Some unringed and some unread...

Counts along the coastline of all the islands reveal the areas most and least favoured by Oystercatchers; besides I do my best to check all the legs of all the birds seen, looking for “my own” individually marked birds or for those coming from elsewhere.



Luckily the birds can be seen close-up even in smaller or larger clubs here – while at the Waddensea they are really rather far away even for the telescope user. Not many “strangers” here. So far the birds with Dutch rings were only seen on Devichya Luda island (called “ostrov Golyi” on the navigation map), and last year birds with BTO metal rings were also recorded on Kibrinskaya Northern island and on Bolshoy Lomnishny island. All the rest are locally ringed.Some of the rings become really untraceable – like the bird with a white-coloured ring on the photo.



Actually all the rings made as red-with-white code by Ecotone Polish company already lost the upper red layer and are extremely hard (if at all possible) to read. I thus continue to regret that I was not using only the very endurable Canadian Protouch company colour rings in the former years... And I can only assume that the white-ring bird on the photo is the same “former red A10” (read then in the good light in 2007) seen there last year. A10 “formerly red” was ringed on 7 July 2003 on Devichya Luda island, and seen in a flock of non-breeders in 2007 on Gorely island in the same spot where an “unread former red” was observed in 2008.