From here on out, each time I see a Spoon-billed Sandpiper, I wonder if it will be my last. Most of the adults who failed to breed have departed and the few that remain are quietly leading hungry, growing chicks through a landscape under constant aerial surveillance by predatory gulls, jaegers and ravens. One male [...]

Last night the winds were relatively calm and the sun was shining for the first time in at least a week.   The tundra, which was brown when we arrived, has now greened up. Sedges, grasses and the leaves of small willows and other plants have emerged from the crusty carpet of mosses and lichens.  [...]