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RESPONDENT
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Pertti Koskimies
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SITE NAME
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Finnish Lapland, Finland
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| +358 9 8135 946(phone,fax)/mbl. +358 40 7216 764 // pertti.koskimies@kolumbus.fi // Vanha Myllylammentie 88, FIN-02400 Kirkkonummi, Finland
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
| The spring and early summer 2003 were fairly late and cold, although the snow melt over the fjell tops already in many places in April, several weeks earlier than average. The weather was more suitable for the breeding birds during mid and late summer. The amount of mosquitoes was exceptionally low as well as during the recent years. This seemed not to have any general effect on the passerines and other insect eating birds.
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| Date of ice-break on
rivers: |
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| Date of final loss of
snow: |
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BIOTIC
CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
average
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Breeding conditions:
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There is no detailed data on the breeding success of passerines at the moment, but most of them seemed to breed in normal numbers. The same holds true also for waders and other land birds.
The number of breeding Rough-legged Buzzards increased somewhat, but the total population remained still lower than average. They have been totally absent from large areas due to low vole populations for several years in large parts of Finnish Lapland, and the same holds true also for the Hawk Owls, Long-tailed Skuas and other vole specialists. One pair of Snowy Owls bred in Utsjoki. Breeding of the Arctic Fox has not been verified since the mid-1990s in Finland, and the total number of wandering individuals must be under ten at present.
The Willow Grouse population was high in many parts of Lapland for the second successive year, and although the number of breeding Gyrfalcon pairs was not increasing markedly, their breeding success was over the average level.
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Rodent dynamics:
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| The populations of voles were increasing from their lows in 2002, but the numbers did not reach peak levels. There were no Norwegian lemmings during the summer in Northern Lapland.
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Rodent species recorded:
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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