Monitoring and Breeding Ecology of Arctic Birds at Medusa Bay, Russia 2005

In 2005 an expedition of the Working Group International Waterbird and Wetland Research (WIWO) visited the Medusa Bay area, near Dikson on the Taimyr peninsula, in northern Siberia (Russia), at 73°23'N 80°32'E . The main aim of the expedition was to apply a standardized breeding bird monitoring method intended to reveal temporal changes in breeding bird numbers at Medusa Bay. This will improve our knowledge of population dynamics of waders and other bird species. The main goal of the monitoring programme is to focus on numbers of all bird species present within fixed plots. Furthermore some important demographic variables, being nest success, environmental variables (snow cover, temperature) and biotic variables (lemming and Arctic fox abundance, arthropod availability) are monitored to be able to explain changes in breeding bird numbers and breeding success.