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RESPONDENT
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Raymond Klaassen
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SITE NAME
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Cape Vostochny, Piasina delta, Taimyr, Russia
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| +31 294 239 319 // raymond.klaassen2@gmail.com // Kloosterstraat 67, 6562AV Groesbeek, the Netherlands
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Project name:
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Alterra Brent geese expedition Pyasina Delta 2004
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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4.07
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19.07
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10
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
| Ice between Cape Wastochny and Coastral Island broke and disappeared on 6.07.
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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: |
low
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Breeding conditions:
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Typical arctic tundra dominated by sedges, mosses and grasses. Bare soil is common, but <10% of coverage. Trees are uncommon and always < 30 cm (dwarf willows). Rocks sometimes protrude tundra. Gravel flats are found near coast and near streams. Many offshore island, covered with mixture of bare rocks and arctic tundra. At some islands only few patches of tundra are found.
No dens of Arctic Fox were occupied in the study area, and we never saw or found tracks of foxes in there. We found some active dens more than 10 km away from our study area (1 of them on Farwaterny Island). No young were observed.
Among skuas only Long-tailed Skua bred, Pomarine and Arctic skua were present but did not breed.
We monitored the abundance of breeding waders by searching nests in an about 6 km2 plot. Little Stints were surveyed in a subset of the plot of about 1 km2. Mayfield daily nest survival rate over the whole period was 0.9770, which equals an estimated nest success of about 61% for an incubation duration of 21 days. Daily nest survival was higher in the first week than in the second week (0.994 and 0.943 respectively). Nests were predated by skuas and gulls.
Nests of Brent Geese and Herring Gulls were counted on all offshore islands. Every island was visited only once. We located 755 Brent Geese nests and more than 3000 Herring Gull nests. We never recorded so many Brent Geese nests before. Brent geese nests were predated on by Herring Gulls. No foxes were present on islands with breeding Brent Geese. On one island where Arctic fox was present Brent Geese did not breed.
We ringed 93 waders (mostly adults caught on the nest) and 43 geese (all adults caught on the nest).
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Rodent dynamics:
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| Very few Siberian Lemmings were observed. Numbers were very low, comparable to other years with low lemming densities. Total catching effort for small terrestrial mammals was more than 1500 trap/nights, and resulted in catching of 5 Siberian Lemmings.
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Rodent species recorded:
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| Latin | Abundance |
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| Lemmus sibiricus | rare |
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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