NAM Verleek 1966 Journal 2 In the afternoon Steve and I went out to check the ridges around the marsh. We saw the same number of Red backs (about 10 birds (70?)) as yesterday. The exposed areas had doubled in size, but the Red backs did not yet respond. It looked like there were more hayland longspurs than yesterday and males were actively display flying as well as defending territories. King Eiders we saw few off. There were two flocks flying north and two flocks flying south. One of the latter consisted of two females and about 25 males. Yesterday we saw a string of 9 males flying south. Apparently these males are finished with the breeding season and are heading south again (?) While on the tundra I noticed the first catkins of a willow, about 1½ cm above the ground. The female post was only 3cm under the surface. These catkins were probably exposed of snow some few days ago, which shows the fantastic response to the summer's heat. Sonderling At 23:00 I saw 9 Semi-palmated Sandpipers along the beach feeding on the sand dunes. There were also three Puddy Turnstones there. We saw no Golden Plovers today. Yesterday we saw two males on two separate occasions. One of them went into the slow wiggly-beat flight display which goes accompanied by a single repeated call. June 5 Got up at 07:00 and had breakfast with John Dawson. The rest of the camp was still very much asleep after last night's shin-dig in Bannow. We spent the morning