As soon as we as arrived on the Tundra and the chopper had departed to bring the first load of our supplies and equipment all that could be heard was the sound of pure raw silence and a few Sandhill Cranes calling in the distance. As I looked out I was caught off guard as a small group of 3 Breeding plumaged Sabines Gulls flew past just on the Ice line close by. After setting up camp which consists of a personal tent each and an Arctic oven tent which is to act as our field camp office and kitchen. We have one electric fence wire and so we set this around the Arctic oven as a deterrent to Bears which could possibly smell our food.
We have named certain areas around camp and the above photo shows "Camp Lake" and this had up to 8 Sabines Gulls present this evening. The photo below shows our new "Field Camp" with lake and hills in the backdrop.
After setting up camp and having some food we took a walk and carried out a visual survey of the surrounding area to get an understanding of habitat and access arrangements to other nearby locations. Birds included a single Bairds Sandpiper,Singing Semi P and Western Sandpipers, Dunlin, Bar Tailed Godwits, Sandhill Cranes, Arctic Skua's Long Tailed Ducks, Pacific Divers, Red Necked Phalaropes, Glaucous Gulls, Tundra Swans, Lapland Longspurs, Arctic Terns all near our field camp. So now the expedition begins...
