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!!!

1.06 Hard decision of R53

As I wrote previously, very energy demanding settings of the transmitters caused the batteries to get empty and not let all gps positions to get uploaded through ARGOS system. Closer look at ARGOS positions of R53, showed that this goose tried to leave Vesterålen 4 days earlier (22.05) but had to turn back, probably due to heavy wind. Geese try to choose the most optimal conditions before undertaking long journey towards the North.

1.06 Less means more

From today, all the tags change sending protocol. So far they were programmed to collect one gps position every hour and than send it through ARGOS system every second day. This is very energy demanding process and sometimes solar panels were not fast enough to recharge and we were loosing the signals. Now, we will (hopefully) get 4 positions per day uploaded through ARGOS every 4 days. And hopefully this means more positions.

30.05 Lost and found

In one of the previous posts I wrote that all but one are in Svalbard. I of course forgot about Mr. travelling goose - R53. He left Vesterålen 3 days ago and is now heading North.

31.05 A little detour

Johny left Vesterålen last thursday (24.05) and is heading North. On the way to Svalbard he stopped on... Bear Island. This is rather unusual and these geese will never stop surprising me.

Let get closer look at his track. The below marked part of his flight took him 20h to travel with an average speed of 2.75 km/h.

I thought that he must have had encountered very heavy wind and it slowed him down and 'force' to get a rest on land. I checked wind speed and direction data for these two days (data come from www.yr.no) and surprisingly this was not the case. There was light to moderate breeze that day (7-10 m/s) blowing from south and south-east. Maybe he was resting on the water surface. 

However when he decided to continue north, the wind changed direction and was blowing from north. Maybe this was the reason why he turned and headed towards the island. I am looking forward to get more news.

23.05 All but one....

... in Svalbard.

Johnny is the only one left in Vesterålen. He was seen paired up there so hopefully he will head soon to Svalbard. I am glad R53 made it up North after short stop on Leka Island. I was getting worried about this 'weird, travelling' goose.
Up North, geese seem to invade western part of the archipelago, which I assume it less covered by snow than the eastern part.

16.05 All good things come to an end

Trøndelag is slowly getting abandoned. Jannik saw big flocks heading North today and the one which are still here are scarse and very small (usually less than 100 birds). This also mean that it is time to go home (wherever home is). I will certainly miss such pictures:

Such weather:

All these creatures around:

..and colours

So time to go home? Yes

I will of course still keep you updated but not from the battle field anymore.

16. 05 First-come first-served

Three geese (Lukasz, Ingunn and R58) are racing down to Svalbard. Similarly as last year, Lukasz did not stop in Vesterålen. He rested some hours on the water south from Vesterålen and than headed to the North. R58 only stopped for few hours, probably for some grassy tea and flew towards Svalbard. Now is time to eat, find a cosy spot for a nest and again... become a daddy.

15.05 ... and in the lightness bind them

R53 on his way North. And again, this goose will never stop surprising me, he stopped on Leka Island.

R53 heading North

Stopping on Leka Island

14.05 One Ring(ed) to rule them all...

what means only R53 left in Trøndelag. Lukasz and R58 are on their way North. OK, there is still R33 somewhere here (probably), but since we do not receive any signals, he is invisible.

13.05 Chris, where are you?

Christane's tag has stopped working properly some months ago (already on the wintering grounds) but from time to time we get some signals that he is alive. Yesterday he called us from Vellamelen, northern part of the goose land. This goose has lost neckband as well. I will give half my goose kingdom  to the one who can spot this goose.

13.05 Moving North

Winter is back in Vesterålen. Yesterday we had to spot our geese in between hailing storms and sunny weather. So better move North:) No new geese flew from Trøndelag to Vesterålen recently. Up North, each of the goose seems to occupy different area.

10.5 Johnny the goose

As I wrote, R62 has already flown North. Although we decided not to name our new birds this year, this goose has to be an exception. Johnny Bakken is our goose observer in Vesterålen. He assisted in tagging R62 in Denmark and he was also the first one to spot it in Vesterålen this year. So here it is, Johnny the goose. Welcome in our team.

Fluffy Johnny spotted by Johnny in Vesterålen 9th of May (Photo: J. Bakken)

Fluffy Johnny hold by Johnny back in Denmark

10.5 Bio-riddle

What does not fit on this picture?

10. 5 Three boys in the North

Ingunn, Danuta and R62 are already in Vesterålen. For Ingunn it took 5h to get to the northern Norway what means that he flew 83 km/h. Wow, this is more than I can speed on most of the roads here in Trøndelag. Danuta took it a bit more easy and got north in 19h what means 25 km/h. Again, still more than I can reach with my city bike in Roskilde. R62 was in between: 7h flight and 61 km/h. Congratulations guys!

 Trøndelag is still filled with geese. Birds are all over the places, invading new sown and germinating fields. Huge flocks can be observed camouflaged on the brownish-grayish fields.
Trøndelag is turning green: many fields are germinating, birch trees are getting small leaves and some flowers are already flowering. Beautiful:)

Geese feeding on new sown fields