The Brent Goose Blog

13 January 2012: Highland Ringing Group joins the Brenttags team

2012-02-01T09:55:00.006+01:00

At last success. After having set nets 5 times and spent around 50 hours of trying, Simon Foster and Carl Mitchell from the Highland Ringing Group finally succeeded in catching a little group of 10 Light-bellied Brent Geese near Nairn on the Moray Firth, Scotland. The birds were colour-ringed individually with “our rings”. This capture is exciting because previous records of metal as well as colour-ringed birds from this region of Scotland have involved birds ringed in Svalbard, Lindisfarne and Denmark, thus from the East Atlantic flyway-population, but also birds ringed in Ireland and Iceland, hence from the East Canadian High Arctic flyway-population – but we do not know whether this area is an overlap zone or whether birds from one flyway-population are “regulars” and birds from the other are “stragglers” blown over. It will be exciting to see if some of these birds fly to spring-staging areas in Denmark and others to Iceland, or they all move in one direction.

Photo is Simon Foster holding one of the 10 caught birds. The map shows the two mentioned flyways as currently understood - where the orange dot indicate the catch area.

13 January 2012: Loff second bird returning to Denmark

2012-02-01T09:54:00.000+01:00

After almost two months of silence from Loff's transmitter - he suddenly started to uplink data to the satellites on 13 January, and it is evident he is back in the vicinity of the catch sites. The map gives the few locations collected in January 2012. The exacyt departure from Lindisfarne however remains unknown (last location over there 21 November 2011).

16 December 2011-20 January 2012: Steve moves over to Denmark

2012-02-01T09:39:00.002+01:00

After 28 days of silence from the transmitter a single ‘beep’ came out over the North Sea, when Steve on 16 December at 12:07 was approaching Denmark 10 km of the mainland coast. This flight of approx. 630 km from Lindisfarne to Denmark obviously gave a burst of sun to the solar panel, charging the batteries to some extent. On 23 December he was located at Karby Enge and 6 January he was observed on the very same spot by Erling Andersen, one of our keen local observers - only 8 km northeast of the site where we caught him last spring. During the flight over the North Sea he also passed the “10,000 km mark”, the minimum distance he has moved since we released him with a satellite transmitter on 3 May 2011. The next two weeks he was moving around the Western Limfjord, including visiting the vicinity of the catch site at Boddum (marked by yellow pin).

September-November: 10 weeks with the four transmitter birds in Lindisfarne

2012-02-01T09:32:00.001+01:00

Ebbe in Lindisfarne 15-20 September

Fridtjof in Lindisfarne 18-21 September

Loff in Lindisfarne 15 September-21 October

Steve in Lindisfarne 18 September-21 October

After the arrival of Ebbe, Loff, Fridtjof and Steve to Lindisfarne we managed to track their utilisation of the site for a few days or weeks - dependant on when the transmitters batteries exhausted (or the transmitters were lost?). The charts above gives the GPS locations collected during the period mentioned. From doppler locations we know that the birds certainly stayed longer. The last doppler locations from Lindisfarne thus were 21 September (Ebbe), 21 October (Loff), 4 November (Fridtjof), and 18 November (Steve). The different colours on individual maps has no different meaning (un-explained error occurring when plotting the maps with the Earth Point - Excel to KML plug-in for Google Earth).

13 October: Fridtjof airborne over Lindisfarne

2012-01-31T21:55:00.003+01:00

Thursday 13 October Bryan Galloway, Peter Fawcett and some other local birders walked out to Beal Point to watch birds, where Bryan Galloway suddenly spotted a flying goose with a satellite transmitter. The day after we received an email with this stunning picture of Fridtjof in flight with his satellite transmitter – and the message “Please find some photographs of a Brent Goose which I saw at Lindisfarne yesterday. I think it must be Steve or Ebbe. We had a great day watching the hundreds of Brent geese resting and flying over the sands at Lindisfarne. Suddenly, out of the blue, out popped this one with a transmitter on its back. It looked in good shape”. We could, however, identify the bird as Fridtjof from the barely visible combination of a red above white ring on the birds right foot. Photo courtesy of Peter Fawcett (c)

8-9 October: Steve observed by Steve in Lindisfarne

2012-01-31T21:53:00.002+01:00

In the week-end Steve Percival went on a field-trip to Lindisfarne. Steve studied the Light-bellied Brent Geese intensively at Lindisfarne from 1990 through 2000, and have caught and ringed 333 birds on the site. He found a pair of ringed birds – and realized that one of them had a transmitter. Although he could not read the letter on the yellow ring, the combination of a pair where both birds had white over green on their right leg, the male had a transmitter, and the female Yellow S on its left leg, make it possible to identify this as being gander Steve named after Steve!

14-24 September: Niels flies south with a distinctly different behavior

2012-01-31T18:59:00.003+01:00

In contrast to the other birds, that all flew almost non-stop and fairly directly to Lindisfarne, Niels had a distinctly different behavior – where he gradually moved south with a lot of small jumps. His exact departure from Svalbard is unknown. On 14 September he was located northeast of Hitra and from there he gradually and slowly moved south along the west coast of Norway to Skoltafjorden north of the island Stolmen. No signals have been received from the PTT after 24 September.

18 September: All birds with known final destiny now in Lindisfarne

2012-01-31T18:46:00.002+01:00

We so far managed to follow four individuals successfully to their first autumn staging area. With the arrival of Fridtjof in Lindisfarne on 18 September in the evening, all these birds surprisingly flew into Northeast England. Lindisfarne is a well-known wintering site which since the mid-1980s typically has been used by half of the flyway-population from October through December. The other half fly to wintering sites in Denmark – mostly in the northeastern parts of the mainland Jutland. Hence it is a bit surprising that all bird managed to follow through to the wintering areas all went west.

12 September: Contact with Caretaker lost in southwestern Norway

2012-01-31T18:39:00.002+01:00

Caretaker was still on Svalbard 3 September. Next locations we have are from his passage over the Barents Sea from Svalbard towards mainland Norway, where he on 9 September at 6:00 in the morning were southwest of Bjørnøya and at 17:00 reached Andøya in Lofoten. During 10-12 September he gradually moved south along the west coast of Norway to the coastline between Revtangen and Hå 25 km southwest of Stavanger. No signals have been received from the PTT after 12 September.

18 September: Steve races down to Lindisfarne

2011-09-21T10:26:00.001+02:00

Steve beats them all again. Just as in spring, where he flew almost non-stop to Svalbard, he also made a very fast flight at least from Lofoten down to Lindisfarne. The pictured flight of 1889 km started west of Lofoten at 17 September at 08:00 and ended in Lindisfarne on 18 September at 21:00, thus took 37 hours with an average speed of 51 km/hour

15 September: Ebbe and Loff flying in to United Kingdom

2011-09-15T22:26:00.002+02:00

The transmitters batteries obviously benefits from the birds flying south to better insolation regimes, where the solar panels can restore their voltage. Thus the PTTs of Ebbe and Caretaker both began to collect GPS locations when they had migrated south to 63°N. The maps shows their routes over the eastern Atlantic and North Sea where Ebbe settled at Lindisfarne, whereas Caretaker surprisingly flew over Lindisfarne and continued further north to Firth of Forth near the Bay of Leven. Ebbe followed a route near the Norway coast whereas Caretaker followed a route over the open ocean.

12 September: four birds still on Svalbard

2011-09-13T12:07:00.002+02:00

Four birds are still located on Svalbard, but now in the southern parts of the archipelago. The upper map shows how Fridtjof who resided on Reinsdyrflya 9 September during 12 September flew south towards Nordenskiöldkysten. The lower map gives the same overall movement for Steve, although he took a slightly different route. Loff is still at Van Mijenfjorden (upper map) and Niels at Edgeøya near Kap Lee (lower map). Maps reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

12 September: Caretaker first bird heading south

2011-09-13T09:37:00.001+02:00

Our study has over the past few weeks suffered increasingly from depleted batteries, and all transmitters stopped collecting GPS locations. We thus only recieve doppler-data every third day, when the transmitters uplink to the satellites. Fortunately Caretaker flew south over the Barents Sea on such a day, and the upper part of the map shows his flight from Svalbard to Lofoten on 9 September. The lower part shows his further movements on 10-12 September, when the transmitter resumed collecting GPS locations.

3 September: Caretaker jumps to Svalbard

2011-09-03T06:48:00.003+02:00

We haven’t been reporting on Caretaker since July due to the fact that he spent all his time, also after moult, on Prinsesse Thyra Ø in Greenland. Like with the other geese we also have problems with low voltages in the PTTs battery, and thus only gets doppler positions every third day. 31 August he was still on his island in Greenland but this morning he had moved east to Svalbard and was located in Van Mijenfjorden on the south slopes of Sundevalltoppen. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

23 August: Loff in Van Mijenfjorden

2011-08-23T22:30:00.003+02:00

Loff has after his arrivel in Van Mijenfjorden been using several sites around the fjord, primarily along the northern shorelines of the fjord, in contrast to Niels who mainly used the southern parts of the fjord earlier in August. The map shows locations visited over the past week. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

23 August: Niels still at Kap Lee

2011-08-23T22:14:00.000+02:00

Since his arrival on Edgeøya on 9 August Niels has remained in the vicinity of Kap Lee for two weeks. This map show locations collected over the week from 17 through 22 August. Apart from a few visits to Thomas Smithøyane he generally spends most of his time in the slightly higher parts of the area. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

22 August: Ebbe moving south

2011-08-23T12:16:00.001+02:00

Ebbes transmitter likewise have started collecting GPS locations after a couple of weeks where we only got dopplers. He spent the period from 16 August until yesterday in the area between Murchisonfjorden and the Vestfonna glacier.The four lower locations give his movements in the morning of 22 August where he gradually moved southeast and then west, with the last location being from Wahlbergøya. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

22 August: Fridtjof and Steve both on Reinsdyrflya

2011-08-23T11:56:00.001+02:00

Good news from the 19 and 22 August down-loads of data. All five birds with transmitters on Svalbard have improved battery voltage, and all have collected GPS positions over the past few days. For Fridtjof these are the first locations based on GPS rather than the less accurate doppler technology from August. Fridtjof is still on Reinsdyrflya – and Steve has gradually moved north from his moultsite in southernmost Woodfjorden via Bockfjorden and the east coast of Woodfjorden to Reinsdyrflya, where he has been the last two days. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

16 August: Ebbe also on the wings

2011-08-16T22:16:00.001+02:00

Ebbes transmitter was silent as a grave 2-12 August. 13 August we recieved a single doppler location in the vicinity of its moult site at Lady Franklinfjorden. Since then he moved south and today 16 August he was located in an area between the Vestfonna glacier and Celsiusberget. The map shows a combination of GPS locations from 1 August and doppler locations from 13-16 August. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

15-16 August: Loff moves southwest

2011-08-16T21:47:00.002+02:00

Loff gradually moves southwest. 15 August he was at Colesbukta 30 km west of Longyearbyen and today 16 August he had moved south to Bellsund. There he was at Kaldbukta in the morning and further west at Van Muydenbukta west of Ingeborgfjellet in the evening. The map shows a combination of GPS locations from 15 August and doppler locations from 16 August. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

12 August: Steve remains in Woodfjorden after moult

2011-08-13T10:12:00.003+02:00

Steve had obviously finished moult 3 August, because we have a GPS location where he was tracked flying 48 km/hour. He was also quite mobile the day before, so probably already airborne 2 August. In contrast to the other three birds we know have finished moult in Svalbard (Niels, Fridtjof and Loff) and who all flew to other sites after moult, Steve is still in Woodfjorden, thus in the vicinity of his moulting site. The map shows all GPS locations collected post-moult from 2 throgh 12 August. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

4-10 August: Fridtjof and Loff both on the move after moult

2011-08-11T22:51:00.002+02:00

We are facing problems with battery power in some of the satellite transmitters. All PTTs successfully changed from the low intensity summer protocol to the high intensity migration protocol on 1 August. Ideally this should result in 11 daily GPS locations and data uplink via the satellites every third day. The PTTs of Fridtjof and Loff have however both failed to collect GPS based locations most of the days since 1 August. It is evident from the Doppler locations we can get every third day when the transmitters communicate with the satellites that both birds now have finished moult. Fridtjof was 1 August still found on his moult site at the west coast of Austfjorden, on 4 August he gradually moved up to the northern parts of Wijdefjorden, and on 7 August he was found on the eastern end of Reinsdyrflya in north Spitsbergen (upper map). On 7 August Loff was was still in the vicinity of his moult site at Depotlaguna in Nordaustlandet, but 10 August he had moved down to Michajlovfjellet situated between the three glaciers Hinlopenbreen, Veitebreen and Hønerbreen in northeast Spitsbergen (lower map). Maps reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

30 July: Niels first bird flying after moult

2011-08-11T10:56:00.003+02:00

Niels was the first bird to finish moult. 30 July he moved northeast from his potential breeding location at Van Keulenfjorden via a couple of nunataks north of Sporen to the eastern end of Van Mijenfjorden near Svea. He then spent some days on the south coast of Van Mijenfjorden - and then looped back to Van Keulenfjorden. In the evening 9 August he moved northeast to Kap Lee on Edgeøya. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

Mid-summer status

2011-08-11T08:29:00.003+02:00

The brent geese each year leave the spring-staging areas in Denmark during the last week of May and return to the autumn staging areas in England and Denmark during the first three weeks of September (median 10 September). Third week of July is thus ‘halfway’ in the summer area, and also the time when all geese are expected to have begun moult by shedding their flight feathers. The status for our six remaining feathered friends is summarized above with two maps showing their moulting location during 18-24 July and a little table below summarizing their status and distances moved so far (i.e. from departure untill 18 July). All but one apparently failed to breed.

We have lost contact to two geese. Jan Ove lost his transmitter over Hemsedal (PTT collected on the ground in Hemsedal without any sign of a carcass, as reported by our local finder Endre Ulsaker). Magnar might also have lost his transmitter when crossing the north Atlantic on 19 June, or he succumbed when he flew into head-winds and quite miserable stormy weather!

14 July: Fridtjof at Austfjorden

2011-07-14T08:50:00.001+02:00

The map displays Fridtjofs movement over the last week, where he has been quite mobile along the west coast of Austfjorden, and also visitied Vestfjorden and Wijdefjorden. Last observations on 13 July was on the shoreline below Gråkammen. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

13 July: Ebbe heads north to moult

2011-07-13T06:14:00.004+02:00

11 July Ebbe moved north to Nordaustlandet - and it is now 100% sure he failed to breed and is on moult migration.

12 July: Steve in Woodfjorden

2011-07-13T06:12:00.003+02:00

This picture reveals the movements of Steve over the last week - where he spent the first five days in Halvdandalen below Kronprinshøgda and the last two days a bit further south at the coastline below Burowtoppen. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

9 July: Loff "at home"

2011-07-10T00:22:00.001+02:00

If one can talk about a home for a Brent Goose it must be where Loff has been in Nordaustlandet since 4 July. He is located in the surroundings of Ringgåsvatnet, northeast of Ringgåsdalen. Ringgås is the norwegian name for Brent Goose. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

9 July: Steve and Fridtjof both on moultmigration to Svalbard

2011-07-09T23:47:00.000+02:00

In the morning of 4 July Steve left Greenland and flew to Woodfjorden in North Spitsbergen (upper map). As suggested previously it is now evident that he and his mate failed to breed this year. Fridtjof likewise - after visiting several potential breeding sites in Greenland from Île-de-France in south to Kilen in north, likewise flew over the Greenland Sea in the afternoon of 4 July. He is now on the westcoast of Austfjorden, also on North Spitsbergen (lower map).

3 July: Niels most site-faithful bird

2011-07-05T07:52:00.001+02:00

In contrast to Steve and Ebbe, Niels is still very site-faithful, and thus might be attending a female sitting on a nest. Over the last week he has only been away from Dishogdene a single afternoon on 27 June, indicated by the three dots at Arrheniusfjellet and Blankhatten. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

3 July: Ebbe might also have failed breeding?

2011-07-05T07:38:00.000+02:00

Ebbe is still located west of Lomfjorden. The image gives his locations over the last week. Looking more into the data from June reveals that he after a period from 8-29 June, where he primarily were located at the nunatak Manhøgda, after 29 June moved permanently down to the valley. This might indicate that he also failed breeding, unless he only attends his female during nighttime when the GPS-reciecer is off. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

3 July: Loff moved to Nordaustlandet

2011-07-04T16:45:00.001+02:00

This picture summarises the movements of Loff since he left Edgeøya on 15 June, attempted a flight to Greenland on 22-23 June, moved back to Svalbard and Sassendalen on 28 June - and now have moved north to the northcoast of Nordaustlandet - probably some of the harshest environments on the Svalbard archipelago.

3 July: Steve abandoned Kilen?

2011-07-04T16:41:00.001+02:00

Steve has been very site-faithful and localised on the foothills of the Kilen mountains 12-25 June, but since then he visited Nakkehoved north of Kilen twice (26 and 30 June), and 2-3 July he had moved south to Amdrup Land. Unless males occasionally go on longer flights for suitable feeding sites while their mates are attending the nests, the increased mobility within this fairly short time-frame suggests a breeding failure. The female would need about 5 days to lay the clutch and 22 days to incubate it, and with a median hatch-date around 7 July as we now it from studies in Svalbard (see Madsen, J., Bregnballe, T. & Mehlum, F. 1989: Study of the breeding ecology and behaviour of the Svalbard population of Light-bellied Brent Goose Branta bernicla hrota. Polar Reserach 7, pages 1-21).

30 June: Jan Ove did fly over the mountains - or at least he tried?

2011-06-30T10:17:00.002+02:00

Yesterday we suddenly recieved a few signals from Jan Ove's PTT - which now happens to be located in an open part of a forest 140 km NW of Oslo. So he obviously also took the route from Oslo-fjorden up through Hemsedalen and over the mountains towards Western Norway, or at least he tried to do this. As reported on 5 June he might have lost the transmitter - else we have a dead goose laying on the ground in Hemsedal. Hope to send out some of our Norwegian friends to tjeck this shortly.

29 June: Loff in Sassendalen

2011-06-29T21:54:00.002+02:00

After his failed attempt to reach Greenland on 23 June, Loff over the last week gradually moved east via Coraholmen in Ekmanfjorden, Kap Wijk and Sauriedalen to Sassendalen, where he arrived 28 June. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

29 June: Fridtjof moves north

2011-06-29T21:49:00.001+02:00

Since his arrival to Danske Øer in Northeast Greenland on 14 June, Fridtjof has moved quite a bit around - visiting Île-de-France, Norske and Franske Øer. This morning he has moved further north and was located at Eskimonæs.

28 June: Niels still at Van Keulenfjorden

2011-06-28T09:19:00.001+02:00

Niels after his arrival to Svalbard almost immediately went in to the bottom of Van Keulenfjorden - and there he has spent most of his time at the foothills of Dishogdene, but with occasional visits to the nunataks between the glaciers Dobrowolskibreen and Liestølbreen. Might suggest his female is sitting on a nest near Dishogdene. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

23 June: Ebbe sits on a nunatak

2011-06-24T15:14:00.004+02:00

Ebbe most of the time sits on the nunatak Manhøgda west of Lomfjorden in northeast Spitsbergen, but occasionally visits the valley below the glacier Skinfaksebreen. The best interpretation of this behaviour must be that his female is sitting on a nest at Manhøgda 10 km inland from Faksevågen. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard

22-23 June: Loff heading for Greenland ...

2011-06-24T07:29:00.000+02:00

In the morning of 22 June Loff flies over Longyearbyen at 8:00 and heads west over the ocean towards Greenland. The three westernmost dots are from 22 June at 18:00 and 19:00 and 23 June at 7:00. But he turns around and heads back to Prins Karls Forland, where he arrives 23 June at 18:00. Have no clue about why he changed his mind. Strong head-winds? Fog ?

20 June: Caretaker and Steve settles to breed

2011-06-22T22:57:00.001+02:00

Caretaker and Steve have most likely both settled to breed. The map shows positions form 12-19 June and evidence that the birds are quite stationary at Prinsesse Thyra Ø (Caretaker) and the interior of Kilen (Steve). As previously mentioned these sites are two known breeding locations for Light-bellied Brent Geese in North Greenland.

19 June: Fridtjof moved a bit south

2011-06-20T22:54:00.000+02:00

After flying over the Atlantic to Greenland on 14 June Fridtjof have spent four days on Danske Øer, but in the early morning of 19 June he moved south to Île-de-France

19 June: Magnar heading for Greenland?

2011-06-20T22:40:00.001+02:00

After his climb over the mountains in southern Norway Magnar slowly made his way up along a more near-coastal route than the other geese, and spent some time on the west coast of Andøya. 19 June just around midnight he took off and by 18:00 he had moved 800 km out over the north Atlantic with a steady course towards Greenland. He thereafter stopped for a break at least four hours on the ocean, and at 22:00 the PTT stopped transmitting data to the satellites so we will have to wait another five days for the full story.

18 June: Loff abandons Tusenøyane

2011-06-19T12:43:00.001+02:00

Loff was previously noted as being the first bird we ever tracked with satellite transmitters to Tusenøyane - despite these islands are considered the most important breeding site for the geese. With the last weeks data we can now see it was only a brief visit. Loff quite soon went back to Edgeøya - and has now moved northwest to the eastcoast of Spitsbergen.

16 June: PTTs changed protocol

2011-06-16T22:41:00.001+02:00

During the summer period, where the Brent Geese will be less mobile (either because they breed and have nests and chicks to attend or because they moult and can't fly), the transmitters have been programmed so they store less GPS locations and submit data to the transmitters less frequently. So we have to wait two days for news to come out of the sky, so to say. We use this protocol in order to avoid loosing to much battery power - so the PTTs are 'fit for fight' when the birds start moving around again after moult or when their goslings fledge.

15 June: Fridtjof gone west!

2011-06-15T20:48:00.000+02:00

Fridtjof arrived at Danske Øer, a group of small islands east of Jøkelbugten in Greenland 14 June at 20:00 - having departed after 6:00 in the morning from Prins Karls Forland, the westernmost island in Svalbard. Note the little funny triangualar shape just west of Prins Karls Forland. This is evidence that Fridtjof actually took off already 13 June at 10:00 - but decided to return to the north end of the island and spend another day feeding. A detour of 100 km oceanic flight without getting anywhere.

14 June: Caretaker moved to Prinsesse Thyra Ø

2011-06-14T19:05:00.002+02:00

Caretaker is furthest north of all. After short-stops in Amdrup Land, at Kilen and at Nakkehoved, he has been on Prinsesse Thyra Ø since 9 June in the morning juni - an ilsand where several breeding pairs of Light-bellied Brent Geese were observed during aerial surveys in the summer of 2008 (Boertmann, D., Olsen, K. & Nielsen, R.D. 2009: Seabirds and marine mammals in Northeast Greenland. Aerial surveys in spring and summer 2008. NERI Technical Report No. 721). Apologise, but this Google Earth imagine could be better!

13 June: Steve shopping around in Greenland

2011-06-14T19:04:00.000+02:00

Steve obviously can not decide where to reside. After his arrival to Greenland he first moved up from the coastal parts of Amdrup Land to the well-known and in some years important breeding site Kilen. Then he moved north to a little coastal strip of open land NW of Nordostrundingen, then returned via Kilen to the inner parts of Amdrup Land - just to return again to Kilen where he was back 12-13 June.

11 June: Magnar climbs over the high mountains

2011-06-12T17:16:00.002+02:00

At last Magnar seems to be heading north. He crossed Skagerak already 30 May in the morning - but have since then spent well over a week around a handful of small islands in Langesundbukta NE of Jomfruland. 8 June at 22 he flew uphil, crossed the mountains between Telemarken and Setesdal, and made a stop-over at a small lake between Storemidtfjell and Rassteinnutane 9 June from 4:00-18:00 at approx. 1200 m height. 9 June at 20:00 he was heading further north crossing the mountain Revseggi near Røldal flying at 1731 m height. From there he flew east of the Folgefonna glacier and more or less straight North - reaching the coast just north of Herøy 10 June at 03:00. Since he has gradually moved up the coast - with last position 11 June at 14:00 just north of Smøla.

10 June: Loff on Tusenøyane

2011-06-11T10:05:00.001+02:00

Loff moved down to Tusenøyane (most likely Lurøya) 8 June in the morning - and is in fact the first of 17 Light-bellied Brent Geese we have tracked to the Arctic by satellite telemetry that have gone to this area, which back in 1985 held most of the breeding population

8-9 June: waiting for my GIS system !!

2011-06-09T23:03:00.002+02:00

Sorry - but Google Earth is not very good when it comes to zooming in on Svalbard!! What a crab picture showing that Ebbe has moved northeast on Svalbard.

Swapped from Windows XP to Windows 7 - and that killed ArcView I would normally use to produce nice maps of Svalbard!

7 June: Steve continues to Greenland

2011-06-07T22:50:00.002+02:00

After his extremely fast non-stop flight to Svalbard, Steve made a few short-stops of a few hours duration at Breinerflya (Sørkapp Land) and on Nordenskiöldskysten, a five day stopover in the surroundings of Daudmannsodden, and another short-stop on Prins Karls Forland - before embarking on his next flight to Greenland 6 June before 9:00 in the morning. Arrived in Amdrup Land 7 June at 12:00 after quite a detour over the Greenland Sea.

6 June: Ebbe observed live in Adventsdalen

2011-06-06T18:58:00.001+02:00

5 June was a wonderful sunday in Longeyarbyen - and the local bird observers from LoFF went out to look for birds, including Henrik Nygård who found a flock with a satellite tagged bird in Adventsdalen, and Øystein Varpe who later relocated the flock and read the rings of Ebbe and his associated female. Later today we learned that the birds had already been observed in the valley by Milla Niemi and Camille Posocco 31 May, and photographed by Trond Haugskott during the week. Enjoy his photo of the birds and Øystein Varpes photo of the spring habitat the Brent Geese use in Svalbard!

5 June: Caretaker heads on to Greenland

2011-06-06T18:57:00.000+02:00

Caretaker as previously mentioned flew to the eastern part of the Svalbard archipelago, but we must now consider this as a major detour. Having spent less than 4 days on Svalbard visiting several short-term stopover sites, Caretaker headed on for Greenland on 5 June at 4:00 and arrived after an 8 hour flight to Amdrup Land at 16:00.

5 June: what happened to Jan Ove?

2011-06-05T18:21:00.000+02:00

Someone might have noticed that Jan Ove departed from Denmark 26 May with the first batch of satellite radio birds, but we have remained silent about his progress towards the Arctic. The story is that he migrated straight up to the top of Oslofjorden (perhaps heading for a climb over the mountains like Fridtjof and Loff), but we have received no further data when the transmitter was supposed to uplink data (30 May, 2 and 5 June). So either the transmitter fell or we have had some kind of technical failure (the last reported battery value of 3.89 V suggest OK battery charge).

2 June: Loff second bird climbing over the mountains

2011-06-05T09:00:00.000+02:00

Loff departed 30 May at 4:00 - and took the route via Oslofjorden and over the mountains just as Fridtjof. Arrived 2 June at 14:00 on Edgeøya, and was therefore also the second bird going east this summer.

1 June: Caretaker goes east

2011-06-04T08:34:00.001+02:00

Caretaker is the fifth bird to arrive in the Arctic. Departed 30 May at 12:00 and arrived 1 June at 21:00. In contrast to the other geese we followed this year, all of which went to southwest Spitsbergen - he travelled east to the island Edgeøya. This is only the second bird of the 16 we have followed so far during 1997, 2001 and 2011 that went east for its pre-breeding stop-over.

31 May: Steve beats them all!

2011-06-02T20:03:00.001+02:00

31 May at 12:00 Steve landed in southwestern Svalbard. Having departed in the morning of 30 May at 6:00 he finished a non-stop journey of approx. 2,400 km in 30 hours. The GPS data we down-loaded indicate a non-stop flight - with an average groundspeed of c. 80 km/h, and occasional speeds of up to 127 km/h. The latter obviously must be with a good taild-wind, because we normally believe their own flight speed is around 60-70 km/hour.

31 May: Niels the second goose on Svalbard

2011-06-01T17:14:00.002+02:00

The PTTs only transmit data to the satellites every third day with the programming we have - and some times data are a bit delayed as well. Data downloaded today reveal that Niels in fact was the second goose to arrive in Svalbard. He departed 26 May at 03:00 and arrived 29 May at 17:00. Crossed the Skagerak and made a major detour towards Oslofjorden before migrating around SW Norway. Made three stops of some hours duration each, one off Askerøya (coast south of Tvedestrand), another in a bay just west of Sola (Stavanger airport), and a third at Ryggsteinen north of Sula.

30 May: Fridtjof takes a surprising route over the mountains

2011-05-31T21:19:00.000+02:00

Fridtjof comes with a big surprise. All birds we have tracked so far have taken a route along the coast around Norway, just as Ebbe did - and the vast majority of observations from Norway is likewise from the coast. Fridtjof however migrated via Oslofjorden, climped over the mountains, flew down via Sognefjorden to the coast, and then followed the 'normal route'. Departed 26 May in the morning and arrived at Svalbard 30 May 9:00. The journey included several short stops and two longer stops, one i Oslofjorden and one in Barentshavet 118 km W of Bjørnøya.

29 May: Why names?

2011-05-31T20:28:00.002+02:00

When we followed the Light-bellied Brent Geese with satellite transmitters back in 2001 we named them just to give them a bit of personality – instead of just using the ringcode ”white DY” seen above on this beautiful more than 15 year old female goose, still going strong in 2011. To keep up this tradition, we would like to introduce you to:

Magnar is named after Magnar Norderhaug from Norway, who worked for many many years with birds on Svalbard, and amongst other wrote the nice book ”Svalbards Fugler”.

Fridtjof is named after Fridtjof Mehlum from Norway, who together with Jesper Madsen took the initiative to start studies of the breeding biology of the Light-bellied Brent Geese in Svalbard, and also published data about their distribution prior to and after breeding.

Steve is named after Steve Percival from England, who initiated large-scale colour-ringing of Light-bellied Brent Geese. He caught and ringed 333 geese during 1991-98 in Lindisfarne, the only regular wintering site of international importance for birds from our study population in the UK.

Ebbe is named after Ebbe Bøgebjerg from Denmark, who fired the cannon-nets and caught the first 11 Light-bellied Brent Geese we followed by satellite telemetry in 1997 and 2001. Before his retirement he also lead our catch-teams when we colour-ringed 140 Light-bellied Brent Geese in Denmark during 1997-2006.

Caretaker is named after BirdLife Denmarks local caretaker group of EU Special Protection Areas no. 27 and 25, the two areas where we caught the Brent Geese. The combined area annually holds about half of the flyway population is spring. The caretakers contribute to our studies of Light-bellied Brent Geese by counting them, reading their rings, and also acted as handymen during the 2011 captures.

Niels is named after Niels Søndergaard from Denmark, who together with his 140 dairy cattle and their calves takes care of most of the saltmarshes on Agerø. Without grazing management the marshes would be overgrown with reedbeds or very tall marshes – and the geese would loose one of their most important spring-fattening areas.

Loff is named after Longyearbyen Feltbiologiske Forening (LoFF)– a dedicated group of primarily amateur naturalists but also professional biologists, many of which over the years have contributed with important knowledge about the Brent Geese in Svalbard. http://www.loff.biz/LoFF_Om_oss.html

Jan Ove is named after Jan Ove Bustnes from Norway, who came down with the first handful of satellite transmitters in 1997 – and helped us to start studies of Brent Goose migratory behaviors with modern technologies.

29 May: Ebbe first goose to arrive in Svalbard

2011-05-31T20:23:00.000+02:00

As mentioned previously Ebbe was among the first departing geese from Agerø, and indeed the first to set foot on Svalbard, where he arrived 29 May at 9:00. Having departed in the morning of 26 May - the journey took him three days, and included a 2 hour rest near Jomfruland (just after having passed Skagerak), an 8 hour rest near Toftøya in Nedstrandfjorden, and a 5 hour rest at near Håsteinen i Ryggsteinhavet.

26 May: First mass migration

2011-05-31T17:34:00.004+02:00

26 May 2011 in the morning the first larger flocks of Light-bellied Brent Geese took of from the Agerø island and its vicinities in the Limfjord area. This was witnessed by Erling Andersen, one of our volunteer bird counters from the local BirdLife Denmark caretaker group - who saw five flocks with a total of 933 Brent Geese departing on northbound migration between 5:18 and 6:07 in the morning.

Later during 26 May well over 2,500 Brent Geese were reported on northbound migration over Norway by local observers - typing their data into the fantastic Norwegion citizen science portal Artsobservationer.

Four of the PTT birds, Jan Ove, Ebbe, Niels and Fridtjof also took off this morning and the question now is - how will the satellite tagged Brent Geese fly up to the Arctic - and where will they end?

4-25 May: Waiting for migration to begin

2011-05-31T17:16:00.002+02:00

Although the main purpose of our project is to follow the long-distance migrations and site-use of the Light-bellied Brent Geese in the Arctic - we've been surprised and pleased to see a load of new information are coming out of the satellite PPTs well before migration. We had no clue that birds behave so differently in the spring staging areas - with some being very site-faithful to a corner of the general spring staging area, like the gander Ebbe (upper map), and others 'moving all over the place' like gander Caretaker (lower map).

3 May: Catching and handling - isn't that harmful?

2011-05-31T17:05:00.001+02:00

Truly - it seems obvious. The birds must be scared by a big bang, a cannon-net flying over their heads, a herd of people running over the marshes to pull the geese out of the nets, and some hours of handling.

We do our utmost to harm the birds as little as possible. When they are in the net we cover them with a tarpaulin cloth so they can't see us, and that makes them calm down. In between handling they are stored in tents on the marshes or in wooden storing boxes lined with hay, again so they can't see us. When we catch the geese, an average bird is handled less than 10 minutes (we handled 60 birds between 7:00 and 12:00 3 May). All birds are released together, so paired birds and goslings have a chance to find each other soon after release.

But perhaps the best evidence for a low impact is that hundreds of geese including several of the newly ringed geese have been seen almost daily on the catchsites after our intervention, that birds easily can manage to fly 2,500 just a few weeks later - and that we still can find live birds in the flocks, we ringed 15-20 years ago. Additionally seven of the eight transmitter birds were observed in the field between 4 May and 25 May, six of them with a female we also ringed, and one with an unringed partner.

Why Brenttags?

2011-05-31T17:02:00.001+02:00

The main purpose of the Brenttags study is:

· to revisit our previous 1997 and 2001 studies of their migratory behavior and energetics - now hopefully both in spring and autumn
· to look much more into details about how the Brent Geese spend the summer in the Arctic.

We can improve the knowledge from the previous studies because we now use PPTs with GPS accuracy (i.e. much more precise locations, and including altitude also, so we can study how they respond expected variable wind conditions along the route).

The PTTs are also with solar panels, so we hope they will maintain their batteries much longer than previously studied birds.

3 May: Why not catch some more?

2011-05-30T22:10:00.000+02:00

And so we did - another 60 birds were caught at 3 May in the morning, now at the Boddum Peninsula in Thy, Denmark. Again all were individually colourringed and 4 males were fitted with PTTs

27 April: First you have to catch them

2011-05-30T21:49:00.002+02:00

And that is not always easy. In 2010 we tried for two weeks without luck - so it was a great pleasure when our chief cannon-net technician Jens Peder Hounisen pressed the button and caught the first 19 geese at Mågerodde on the island of Mors, Denmark, in the evening of 27 April 2011. All were ringed with an individial colour-ring combination and 30 g solar GPS PPTs from Microwave Telemetry was fitted to four selected males.

Why Blog in English

2011-05-30T21:36:00.000+02:00

As a matter of fact: More understands English than anything else. The Brenttags project is funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management - so perhaps we should develop this in Norwegian. But this sounds simpler than it is if you are Danish - because our languages are quite similar yet so different that one would be doomed to present some poor Norwegian on this Blog. Our Brent Geese also winters in England, the Netherlands and Germany, so even more languages at stage. Hence English.