This morning I headed off to the the western spit again excatly a week later than the previous visit in order to see how the water levles are dropping and to also to search old Spoon Billed Sandpiper teritories. I ventured out with Nicoli, who's company I enjoy, he has a good kindness and presence that I like about him and he is polite and curtious, down to earth and extremley knowledgeable on Spoon Billed Sandpiper. The water level of the 3rd river has now dropped a considerable ammount and we were able to cross the bridge this time on the quad bike. We surveyed the area's and had several pairs of Sandhill Cranes and Pacific Golden Plover's. We went through a stream on the tundra and manged to "Ground" the quad bike and got it totally stuck. It took near on an hour and a half of digging it out by our hands in the cold muddy waters. I was totally covered in mud but once the quad bike was free we continued with our survey. Sadly we were unable to locate any Spoon Billed Sandpiper's but did locate 2 new Mongolian Plover nest's on our return journey. Luckily we stopped off Sveta's house when we got back to the village who made us both a much needed good hot cup of tea.
Please note: This blog is just my own personal on-line birding & travel diary. It is not meant as anything other than this and I use it just for my own personal notes and photos of the people I meet and places I visit all in search of Wader's . I especially want to keep it up to date as this is a "year out" for me and so I want to be able to look back on it in many years to come. Also note I do not put my best photos on this blog until a later date. "Thank you" for reading.....,
