Another May is drawing to a close and I find myself missing the familiar Arctic tundra surrounding Barrow, AK. It is now the eve of a new adventure; I find myself packed, visa in hand, and ready for another summer with shorebirds on the tundra. However, this time I'll be working on the other side of the international date line.
From June through the end of July I'll be working/volunteering in Meynypilgyno, Chukotka, Russia. This site is famous for being one of the only remaining reliable sites for nesting Spoon-billed Sandpipers (Calidris pygmea) in the world. This critically endangered wader was estimated to have a global population of 210-228 breeding pairs and a total of 661-718 individuals in 2014/2015 (Clark et al. 2016). While this appears to be up slightly from the rougher estimates made a few years prior, continued conversion of wintering and staging intertidal habitat in Southeast Asia, along with hunting in wintering areas continues to threaten this species and many other waders using the Southeast Asian-Australasian Flyway. I'm extremely excited to work with this and many other species of palearctic breeding shorebirds this summer.
I don't anticipate a good enough internet connection to write while I'm in Meino, though I'll be keeping notes, and will be writing several installments after returning to the US in August. I'm looking forward to visiting the Palearctic for the first time and continuing to shape my career with waders, now as an officially newly minted Wildlife Ecology graduate (Bachelors of Science) from New Mexico State University.
For those interested, the Spoon-billed Sandpiper recovery project maintains a website and blog where one can read occasional updates from the field and learn more about this unique calidrid's life-history and the efforts to recover it. That site is accessible here
While I do not anticipate working directly with the head-starting program, I'll be working closely with those responsible for that project.
But before I can find any Spoonie nests I'll have two full days to explore the birdlife around Moscow. I'm hoping my three months of prep pays off and I'll be competent enough to identify most of what I encounter. Now its just a matter of making it through approximately 18 hours of travel.
Clark, N.A., Anderson, G.Q.A., Li, J., Syroechkovskiy, E.E., Tomkovitch, P.S., Zockler, C., Lee, R., Green, R.E. First formal estimate of the world population of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper (2016). Oryx, 1-10.
Good luck and stay safe. I hear Cherbonyl is pretty birdie thede days.
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