The four-year lemming cycle suggests it should be, but proof is lacking. They are heading for the outer delta, and so are we.Īs we make our way towards the island of Nizhny Bobrowski, the big question is whether this will prove to be a ‘lemming year’. On making a short stop, we hear the ecstatic long calls of a pair of Ross’s Gulls Rhodostethia rosea. It is strange to see Willow Grouse Lagopus lagopus flying low over the water like ducks. Woolly Mammoth Mammuthus primigenius bones still emerge from the banks each year. The break-up was rapid, and on 16 June we awoke to find that the last ice sheet near the station had finally gone.Īfter several weeks in a tundra landscape of rolling hills, we are navigating a labyrinth of channels between tiny, flat, waterlogged islands. Eventually we saw some clear water somewhere far out in the middle of the ice. Here in the delta the ice rose slightly higher each day on the accumulating melt water, cracking here and there until it almost reached the top of the riverbank. At the river’s source some 4400 km to the south, winter ended weeks earlier. When I arrived it was covered in a thick layer of ice. In front of the station lies an 8 km wide stretch of the river Lena. There is no spring here, only a monumental battle as summer wrests power from winter. We are able to talk about a few things, but there is so much more that I would like to ask. I have maybe 200 words of Russian while Vladimir and colleague Yuri Sofronov speak about the same amount of English. Its scientific director is Dr Vladimir Pozdnyakov. We are staying at the Lena-Nordenskjöld International Biological Station, situated on the banks of the main channel of the Lena, about 65 km from the nearest town of Tiksi. Blizzards blanket the tundra and all the waders flock to the gravel again. Soon a fresh gale starts from some other direction. Pacific Golden Plovers Pluvialis fulva whistle, Pectoral Sandpipers C melanotos boom and Red-throated Pipits Anthus cervinus sing over new claimed territories. When the wind stops altogether, every creature makes the most of a few precious hours of calm. On a day of mild southerlies, the snow melts. The wind has been strong most days, and very cold. Flock after flock of Curlew Sandpipers Calidris ferruginea and other waders have been arriving, often in full song, only to huddle together on the gravel banks of a small stream of melt water that has cleared away a little snow. Nevertheless, there is plenty for me to record while waiting for the ice to break. Spring is late this year, and temperatures have been below zero for much of the month. It is June and the sun will not dip below the horizon until early August. Allow me to take you north and east, out of the Western Palearctic to the Lena delta in arctic Siberia.
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