Many birds ae quick to remove egg-shells and other shiny objects from the vicinity of their nests. This summer I watched this American Golden-Plover carrying off ptarmigan feathers as well. Since pesky ptarmigan are in seemingly perpetual molt this could prove to be a full time job.
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Thanks Declan. Were you working or camping? I will be in Barrow this coming June.
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Both. It was by at a study site. We were dropped off for a couple of days of sampling before moving on to other sites. The plover was nesting near by tent.
I just came back from Barrow a few days ago. Quite impressive number of birds still up there. Once I dig myself out of my in-basket I'll try to post a couple images.
Thanks. Am looking forward to seeing a few. By all indications it was a very poor and very late breeding season at most sub-arctic locations. Perhaps that would account for the birds still up there....
Were you there for school or for another sort of project? Did you have a generator?
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Nesting was late in the central Canadian arctic/subarctic but I'm not so sure how widespread that was. Didn't seem to be the case at the Alaska sites I visited, indeed hatch seemed a bit on the early side. Of course this time of year location of nesting can bear little relation to where the observation was made. Birds we were seeing at Barrow last week included many of (probable) Russian and Canadian origins. Lots of juvs so there was nest success in places.
It was an ongoing research project. No generator. We were never in a place long enough to warrant all the hassle of lugging one around or putting up with the noise.
Thanks again for the info. Who is overseeing the project? (Which organization?) Camping in the Arctic must be a bit of a challenge. Do you bring extra computer and camera batteries?
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Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Camping in the arctic is no big deal (well in some places it can be hard to find a dry spot). Lots of space and interesting wildlife and sounds. For short trips like the one involved in this thread I don't even bother bringing the computer (it was back in Barrow which was our hub for this portion of our sampling) but if necessary extra batteries can help and on occasion I've brought along a solar panel for power.
Never enough camera batteries and it is a good thing CF card prices have dropped as it is easy to burn through them.