28.07 Probably goodbye

I know I have written already that I will post less and less posts on this blog, but this may be the proper last one or at least the last one regarding the positions. After two seasons the project is over. We received many very interesting data which are currently being analysed. And we do not receive any more positions. Probably after summer, we are going to write to ARGOS to switch all the transmitters off.
Here is the short summary of what had happened to our birds.We tagged 11 birds. Out of 11 tags we found two, four tags are in the middle of nowhere and for the remaining five we can only speculate.
Caroline's tag was found last year by John Frikke (in April 2012). The goose has been seen later on so we know is alive.
Thanx to Jørgen Peter Kjeldsen from Ornit, we got one more tag back, this time from Lukasz.

                                                                                           Fot. Jørgen Peter Kjeldsen

Look, how is the antenna chewed . This goose must have worked pretty hard to destroy it. Also you can see that the harness is a bit loose. When we 'designed' our attachment system, we wanted harness to 'work' just for two-three years to be sure that geese do not carry unnecessary weight after the project is over. We made it out of knicker elastic, something most of us has at home. Elastic tend to get loose after sometime, This system seems to work well for our project.
We know that four other tags have been detached from the birds: Gitte and Johnny have lost their tags in Svalbard, but this is too remote area to go and pick up the tags. R33 lost its tag in Filsø in Denmark. There is a big project going on up there, where a huge lake is being restored. Apparently, the speed of rising water is this lake is faster than we are, and the tag is probably under water now (I would like to thank Ole Amstrup for his effort). Finally, the tag of R37 is in mid-Norway but it only gave us not very precise ARGOS positions, so to find it is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Finally what happened with the rest of our guys we don't know. As I wrote we do not receive any positions anymore. None of the geese have been seen this year by any goose observers. So finger crossed we get to know what is going on as soon as possible. Here is the map with the last positions from the 'missing' geese:

I promised in one of the last year's tag to show you a movie from one of the goose catch. Please be patient because I really believe that one day I will have time to finish it :)
I will also post some short note about my results from data analysis (this may be sooner than the movie:)

Last but not least I would like to thank all of you for being with me during this project, visiting the blog and being so keen on what is going on with our geese.

Hope to see you in the field:)

2.05 Beautiful spring weather this spring in Trøndelag...

..and beautiful road conditions in such springy weather

.. so good to have some working clothes

btw: some geese already seen on grass, go geese go !!!!

01.05 It's been a long time...

... since I wrote anything on this blog. Our geese did not send any data since basically last year and I am almost sure we won't get any more in a future. I would say this is the end of the story of our tagged birds. A bit sad.
I am now back in Trøndelag looking at geese stopping here on their way north. Spring has come later this year and everything is shifted. There is still snow lying on some fields, and very few fields have been plowed and probably none re-sown yet. Geese forage mainly on stubble fields but there are first flocks being seen on grass. Grass does not look very juicy yet so I am not surprised.

New snow from this morning

and even more up in the mountains

but we all do our best to find geese

I will try to keep you updated while I am in Trøndelag.

24.12 Again with a little help from our friends

We still do not receive any uplinks from our birds but we have an army of the observers with ears and eyes open. Thanx to them we know that Gitte is doing well; Danuta, Lukasz and R33 were in Denmark. Where they are now I have no idea. Thank you all of you for all the observation.

Danuta

 Gitte

 R33

 and Lukasz

and Merry Christmas for all goose lovers:)

16.11 Lukasz and his friends

More news from Lukasz, yooopie. He is still in Bygholm Vejle, in northern Julland in Denmark. 4th of November there was an international pink-foot count where geese from Svalbard breeding population were simultaneously counted along the flyway (Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium). It looks like Lukasz is among more than 14 500 geese reported that day in Bygholm Vejle.

4.11 We all love stats :)

I have been running this blog for more than 2 years now. Time flies. During this time the blog was visited more than 3.500 times. I can't compare myself with some blogs of celebrities or blogs with good recipes but this means that more than 4 times per day, there is someone in the world interested in our geese deployed in satellite telemetry. Thank you all for the interest:)
May 2012 was the busiest time on the blog and the most popular post was the one about Danuta escaping battle field published 23.10.2011.
My visitors mainly come from the countries along the pink-footed geese flyway but we also have some distant goose lovers. Thank you guys again!!!

3.11 Go, Lukasz go!!!!!

Finally we have some news about one of our birds. Lukasz - a goose tagged in 2011 is now in Denmark. We don't know whether he just arrived to Denmark or was here before but just now we received some data. Anyway, I am glad he is alive and we hope for more news soon.

Not surprisingly, Lukasz stopped in exactly the same spot as last year. However last year he was there almost a month before (10th of October):

31.10 I am almost giving up

Dear goose lovers,

What you can see below is what I have been downloading since August - no data for any of our tags.

To be honest I have no idea what happened. All gesse should already be here, in Denmark. Trøndelag is under snow cover now. None of the goose observers both in Norway and in Denmark have seen any of our geese. This is also not very probable that all geese have lost their tags at the same time. Normally if a tag is lying on the ground, we receive some data from time to time. Anyway, as I promised I will keep you updated but there may be not much to show. In order to keep the blog alive, I will post some other goose news, not directly related to my tagged birds. Hopefully you will enjoy it.

26.09 For patient goose lovers-little reward

The autumn season has definitely started. The goose observers have been redistributed along the migration route to spot first birds coming from the North. Ingunn is part of the wave and he just sent positions from northern Trøndelag. Unfortunately, no news from the rest

Last year he did not stop by Trøndelag (autumn route below) so lets see what is going to happen this year

17.09 For patient goose lovers

First geese already showed up in Trøndelag. Since three weeks we haven't received a single signal from our geese so I assume they are still in Svalbard. But they should head south soon so finger crossed that this will result in more signals. Just be patient

6.08 May sound a bit boring...

I am back and so the blog news. Unfortunately there is not much to share with you. From the 'new' geese (geese tagged this year), only Johnny gives some signals from the North (OK, we got one position from R58). The 'old' team on the other hand is pretty active.

Lukasz hopefully with his family left the nest and is probably moulting now in western Svalbard.

Johnny is still on Edgeøya and R58 showed once around Vanmijen fjorden

Danuta is the only one who took his moulting trip. Last year he moulted on Edgeøya, this year moved a bit north to Barents Island

Ingunn still around Ekmanfjorden

It seems that family life is a bit boring :)

9.07 Baby boom

All eggs should be hatched by now and if our guys have goslings, the whole family should start moving around and look for juicy tundra.
I don't think Johny even tried to breed, he arrived too late to Svalbard and settled down too late on Edgeøya. But it looks like Ingunn, Danuta and Lukasz did they best. I also think R33 tried to breed on Prins Karls Forland. Will see....
Below the newest positions. The rest of the guys is silent.
I am away for the next three weeks so no updates until August. Time to go back to the field:)

Looks like Ingunn is moving out of the nest....

24.06 Blog news

Since our geese do not do anything spectacular or simply do not give us any signals, I found a bit time and added some information on the blog. You can now meet all our geese in 'Tagged birds' section and read about how do we obtain the data in 'How does it work'. I also added one more link ('Geese in Svalbard) to 'More about geese' list on the right hand site of this page. There (unfortunately only in Norwegian), you can learn more about breeding, nesting, and feeding places of all goose species visiting Svalbard and many more information. Enjoy

24.06 Only house work

R53, R58 and R33 are silent but Ingunn, Danuta and Lukasz seem to settle down. Pink footed geese are monogamous meaning that they have one partner for the whole life (unless something bed happens like in our case:). While female is incubating eggs, male is guarding the territory around the nest and takes care of the female. That is why all the positions come from one spot because males basically do not move much at this time. Below is a zoomed in example of the positions of guarding male:

and the overview where are our geese now. Johnny is still looking for a place to nest (if this is still possible so late in the season) and is now in Edgeøya. This is well known pre-nesting place of pink footed geese.

It is amazing that all our geese tagged last year show such site fidelity: they nest in almost exactly the same position as last year. Below is the map with the positions of Ingunn: filled circles 2011 and ringed circles 2012:

and the nests locations (from 2011 and 2012) of Danuta. Map reproduced with permission from Norwegian Polar Institute using TopoSvalbard.

and Lukasz:

12.06 Johnny on the wings again

Johnny decided not to breed on Bird Island. He took 'classical' route and set off to Svalbard 5th of June. This is 2-3 weeks later than other tagged geese so hopefully he can still find an empty patch to set up the nest. Good luck boy!!!