Odyan trip, day 2

Day 2 (July 23)

This day was dedicated to surveying the Odyan Bay proper, including the Melkovodnaya Bay. We set off early in the morning at rising tide, so that we would reach the Melkovodnaya Bay with the high tide. The weather was calm, sunny, there were hardly any waves.

We passed one unoccupied territory before we saw our fist pair with one chick at the nest. It was the nest Odyan-3 with 1 chick. The chick was laying flat in the nest, so it was not easy to spot it. One adult was at the nest at the time we passed it.

The next two nests Odyan-4 and Odyan-5 were empty, but the presence of an adult at both nests lead us to categorize these nests as 'occupied'. Next nest, Odyan-6, has disappeared, but there were 2 adult eagles present in this territory.

The nest Odyan-7 was shifted some 200 m along the coast and had 1 chick. The old nest was also noticeable, but had partially collapsed.

This was the last nest with a chick that we saw at the Odyan bay. The other 3 known nests were empty, including the one at the Umara island. On the bright side we managed to see a group of 12 adult and 6 immature eagles a shallow bay east from the Kalkuty bay.

At the eastern side of the bay we say a great number of Spectacled Guillemots, Crested Auklets and Ancient Murrelet, and many weak-looking Horned Puffins- it was a strange place for these birds....

On the way to the Umara island we encountered a very stiff headwind, to the extent that we had to stop and wait it out for some hours. A few hours before dawn we managed to resume the move to the Umara island, which we circumnavigated running against the time.

At the crossing from the Umara island to the Naydenaya bay we once again hit the storm, but the waves were coming from the side. Dr. Larisa Zelenskaya created lot of noise while crossing.

Nobody get seasick.

Thus, between the Ola and Umara Island we count 11 occupied territories producing 6 chicks.