Final week on Disko

Our stay here is about to come to an end. After having spent the first weeks searching for birds with loggers without any luck, we decided to start to put new loggers on adult birds breeding in the vicinity of the station. Since we had searched intensely for ringed birds, we already had good knowledge about the breeding birds in the area and we even knew most of the nests. A great advantage since we want to maximise the chances of retrieving the loggers next year.

Mosquitoes keeping us company

So far we have equipped 14 adults with geolocators and we hope to be able to get a few more loggers out before leaving by the end of the week. It means that we will have to return again next summer, but at least we still have the chance to get some migration data then.

Male wheatear with a logger

Leaving Disko will be a bit sad. It’s been really nice to meet the summer here and to see all the hills change from brown to green, watch all the plants starting to flower and follow the development of the fledgling snow buntings, Lapland buntings, redpolls and wheatears. But of course it will also be nice to return to the Swedish summer, the long-but-not-quite-as-long-as-here days and our normal lives. Then we’ll have an entire year of keeping our fingers crossed hoping to get some birds back next year. Patience. :)

All set and ready to go!