Bluethroat with colour-rings and geolocator. All photos © Johannes Amshoff/Moritz Meinken Sooner or later turns up the report about the second week (end of June 2021) in Mirnoye/Central Siberia. After Vera and Wieland left, we (Johannes and Moritz) had a week left to tag 19 Bluethroats. We didn´t have high hopes as we could tag only a total of 4 Bluethroats with four persons the week before. Nonetheless we continued catching at a new spot, the riverbank directly at the Yenisey just south of the station. The location was only accessible by boat, but the team made a safe journey possibl ..read more

  Putting up a mist-net amidst the Yenisei river ice and broken trees, June 2021. Photos by Wieland Heim Back in Russia, finally! Fieldwork had not been possible for the Amur Bird Project team in 2020, and so I was really happy when the unexpected news came that getting a Russian visa is possible again. The plan was to continue our work on the migration ecology of Siberian songbirds, with the help of light-level geolocators and new multisensor loggers and in cooperation with Oleg Bourski and Katya Demidova at the Mirnoye research station, the Swiss Ornithological Institute, Lund ..read more

Amur Bird Project team at Muraviovka Park, August 2017 Due to the pandemic, no fieldwork was possible in 2020 (and possibly in 2021) for the Amur Bird Project team in Russia. But we have made the most of the time and published many of our findings! In autumn 2017 we (Hans, Benny and Jonas) stayed at Muraviovka Park and spent several nice, creative weeks together. Here we like to remember those inspiring time and the unforgettable birds we saw and ringed. Now, more than three years later, each one of us has published a paper on his “own” project. Hans, the moult enthusiast of our gro ..read more

Amur Bird Project annual meeting, 07.12.2019 Münster/Germany, © Anna KorshunovaFor the 3rd time our annual Amur Bird Project (the 7th since 2013) meeting took place at the Institute of Landscape Ecology in Münster/Germany. Again, the presentations were very well attended – around 70 participants came from Germany, Russia, Hungary, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Many thanks again to all speakers, helpers and participants! Zum dritten Mal fand das Jahrestreffen des Amur Bird Projects (das 7. Seit 2013) am Institut für Landschaftsökologie der Universität Münster statt. Wieder waren die Vor ..read more

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Yellow-breasted Bunting fledgeling © Marc BastardotAfter a short break in the Polar Ural, Marc and Yulia, a Russian volunteer, met with ornithologist Alexey Levashkin in the Nijni Novogorod Oblast. There we put the last three geolocators of the year on males of the Yellow-breasted BuntingEmberiza aureola, colour-ringed two other individuals, and did some habitat mapping. And this in less than 3 days! Despite the fact that males were nearly not singing, we could easily catch them, thanks to the perfect weather conditions (rainy day and foggy morning). The territories were really easy to find a ..read more

Siberian Rubythroat with geolocator © Wieland HeimMy last stop on this year´s expedition through Russia were the Ural mountains. Our goal was again to search for returning birds with geolocators, and to start a project on the migration of the White´s Thrush Zoothera aurea. This species is the largest songbird migrating along the East Asian flyway, heavy enough to carry a satellite transmitter - which would allow real-time tracking. The team met in Ekaterinburg – Leo came from Lake Baikal, Vera from the Far East, Andy from Germany and Anna from Moscow. On the next day Kasper Thorup, head of t ..read more

One of the last Yellow-breasted Buntings in Europe? © Marc Bastardot Starting from Lake Baikal we travelled 5000km to the west by spending four days in the Trans-Siberian Railway. We crossed the vast Siberian forest-steppe, endless birch forests and countless bogs. In Ekaterinburg we met Wieland again and said good-bye to Leo, since they went northward to the Ural mountains. We – Marc, Fritzi and Ilka – were heading for Syktyvkar in the Komi Republic, situated in north-western part of Russia. Here we worked together with Gleb Nakul and Elena Danilova from the Russian Academy of Sciences.During ..read more

Arctic Warbler with geolocator While my team continued our work at Lake Baikal, I was travelling to Mirnoye in Central Siberia. This time I had to take the helicopter, as regular ship traffic on the Yenisei river starts only in mid-June. Helicopter flights are very cheap here, because they are subsidised by the government as the only connection among the villages along the Yenisei river throughout most of the year. However, it was quite difficult to get on board, as one cannot order tickets in advance. But in the end, everything is possible – that’s Russia. Oleg Bourski and his team had alrea ..read more

Yellow-breasted Bunting - adult male © Marc Bastardot For us – Marc, Leo, Fritzi and Ilka – our time in the Selenga river delta at Lake Baikal has come to an end now as well. Together with Yury Anisimov we tagged a total of 10 Yellow-breasted Buntings Emberiza aureola with geolocators, despite unfavourable weather conditions with a lot of wind. Four more loggers were put on Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica. Even more exciting, we were able to retrap a Siberian Rubythroat Calliope calliope from last year to retrieve its data logger. Out of only eight individuals, three Yellow-breasted Buntings w ..read more