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RESPONDENT
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Mikhail Soloviev
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SITE NAME
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Bludnaya River mouth, Taimyr, Russia
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| (495)9394424 // mikhail-soloviev@yandex.ru // Dept. of Vertebrate Zoology, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Project name:
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Wader Monitoring Project at Taimyr
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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5.06
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5.08
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4
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
| Snow cover reached 50% on 9 June which is at the early end for an average season, as well as is complete melting of snow on 14 June. Since the start of recording on 5 June air temperature followed very steep pattern of rise comparable only with the previous record in 2001. Accordingly, temperatures became very high in the second half of June when on some days daily mean air temperature exceeded +20øC. Low precipitation in combination with hot weather resulted for the second year in a row in severe drying of tundra and marshes. July was moderately wet, and habitats accumulated some water in the second half of the month. Dates of plant and insect development were the earliest on record since the start of observations in 1994.
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| Date of 50%
snow-cover: |
9.06
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| Date of ice-break on
rivers: |
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| Date of final loss of
snow: |
14.06
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BIOTIC
CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
low
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Breeding conditions:
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A pair of Arctic Foxes inhabited a den on the southern border of the main study plot with the floodplain, and had 9 cubs in the brood. Adult foxes were regularly seen going to the den with chap full of lemmings. Among skuas, Pomarine did not breed, while Long-tailed and Arctic nested in their usual low numbers, and one nest of Arctic Skuas survived to hatching. Two nests of Rough-legged Buzzards were found on the Khatanga River bank, having 2 and 3 chicks on 31 July.
Most species started nesting earlier than in other years since 1994 except for 1999 and 2001. Estimated densities (in nests/km2) for common species were: Little Stints - 9.5, Grey Phalarope - 4.7, Ruff - 7.1, Dunlin - 8.7, Pectoral Sandpiper - 14.2 and Lapland Bunting - 18.9. These densities were low compared with long-term average for all species except for Little Stint, which density was close to average. The total bird density 80.5 nest/km2 slightly exceeded the previous minimum record of 74.6 nest/km2 in 2001, but was still considerably below the range 93.9-151.1 nest/km2 in other years. Thus, adverse impact of hot and dry weather in June on breeding bird numbers apparently overshoots negative impact of late spring or cold weather observed in other seasons.
Despite close neighbourhood of Arctic Fox den predation pressure was not high, and nest success of common birds was moderate to high: 58.3% in Dunlin (n=12), 47.6% in Pectoral Sandpiper (n=21), 45.5% in Ruff (n=11), 44.4% in Grey Phalarope (n=9), 83.3% in Little Stint (n=12), 84.0% in Lapland Bunting (n=25). Still nest success was apparently lower than in 2001 when lemming numbers were very close to 2002.
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Rodent dynamics:
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| After complete melting of snow on 16 June, lemming under-snow nests were counted on a transect 4.6 km long and 10 m wide, located principally within flat-hillock marsh - the dominant habitat in the study area. On this transect, 6 winter nests were recorded which is very close to 7 nests in 2001 and considerably less than 33 nests on the same transect in 2000. Number of lemmings recorded visually in June-July 2002 was also very close to 2001 (25 and 22, respectively), which exceeds only the numbers recorded in 1995 and 1998 (9 and 10, respectively), and represents an apparent population low continuing for the second year after the outbreak in 2000 (587 records) and growth stage in 1999 (94 records). Estimated density of Siberian Lemmings varied from 1.8-6.3 ind./hectare in June-July based on counts using live-traps, and population, probably, continued to increase through the summer.
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Rodent species recorded:
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| Latin | Abundance |
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| Lemmus sibiricus | rare |
| Dicrostonyx torquatus | rare |
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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Impact of human activities:
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