Mr Blue has started moult migration eastwards
The Lesser White-fronted Goose with gps-gsm neckband, mr. Blue, has started his moult migration eastwards today and is another hint at another bad breeding year for the Fennoscandian population. 14 ind. was also seen at the Valdak Marshes on 21 June, so at least 8 pairs have failed so far out of appr. 40-45 pairs.
28 June 2021 by Tomas Aarvak & Ingar Jostein Øien BirdLife Norway
Piskulka-site to be updated soon
During winter a lot has happened behind the scene and a new version of the piskulka web site is almost ready to launch. Security is revamped, we’ve added the possibility for users to edit their own observations, and the visual layout and interface has been modernized. Now we are into the final test phase and apologize to our enthusiast users for any strange errors visible during ordinary use. We’re rectifying this on the fly, so don’t worry. We’re soon off to the new version, the third iteration of the site.
5 April 2021 by Dorin Damoc & Tomas Aarvak BirdLife Norway
Adventures of mr. Blue during spring migration
The Lesser White-fronted Goose male mr. blue left the wintering area of Lake Kerkini in the morning on 13th March and arrived in Hortobagy in Hungary just before noon on the 14th. On 2nd April it started north and arrived in Biebrza national park in Poland in more or less the same area as in spring 2019, but 12 days earlier. However, to our surprise it started south back to Hungary after just some few hours rest and was back in Hortobagy after a total of two days of flying – a distance of appr. 1410 km! Only eight Lessers were subsequently located in Hortobagy, so more than 90 individuals are now unaccounted for as of 5th April.
5 April 2020 by Ingar Jostein Øien & Tomas Aarvak BirdLife Norway
Successful catching of Lessers in Chukotka 2018
In 2018 we captured adult Lesser White-fronted geese from molting flocks on Rauchua River, Western Chukotka, Russia. The study site and LWFG population are earlier described by Solovyeva & Vartanyan (2011). According to our counts in summer 2018 this population seems to be slightly increasing as compared to our count in 2010.
Between 16 July and 2 August 2018 we manage to capture 10 adults and about 30 juvenile geese. These were caught by hand, just running after them in bushes, and sometimes with help from our dog, a labrador-retriever. All juveniles were released without any marking, while all adults were equipped with Ornitela GPS/GSM trackers transmitting via GSM network. By late November nine out of 10 birds gave signals. This LWFG tracking project was a part of waterfowl tracking initiative led by Prof. Lei Cao from Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
7 December 2018 by Diana Solovyeva Institute of Biological Problems of the North FEB RAS07
Autumn migration of Fennoscandian Lessers mapped with gps-collar
“Mr. Blue” is a male Lesser White-fronted Goose that BirdLife Norway caught with a cannon-net at the Valdak marshes, Porsanger fjord, in Norway on 24th of May this spring. It was equipped with a gps-gsm neckband which was programmed to collect a gps-location every sixth hour throughout the day.
22 September 2018 by BirdLife Norway