27.03 Five new members of the family.

During goose catch we chose 5 adult, big males to deploy 5 new satellite tags. We chose males as usual cause males are bigger than females and we believe that therefore may better tolerate the transmitters. This year we chose North Star as the company providing the devices. Each tag weights approximately 60g including the harness. This is 10g less that last year. We hope that such weight won't have a pronounce effect on a 3kg male. Each tag is attached to a goose by knicker elastic harness so the harness can 'adjust' when geese are gaining and loosing weight during the migration.
For the moment, all tags are set to send us 3 positions per day but once geese arrive to Trøndelag, we should receive one position per hour from each individual. The tags, as last year, are equipped with solar batteries.
This year we also decided not to name our birds, cause the number of suggestions is much bigger than 5:). So let's keep it simple and stick to neckbands' codes. Hopefully it will help you remember the codes and inform us every time you spot one of our geese. The new members of the family are: R33, R37, R53, R58 and R62. Welcome and stay in touch!!!