We’ve spent the last couple days supplying the colony with power! I.e. hauling car batteries up the hill and stringing almost a mile of cable though the rocks and tundra. Getting untangeled was only half the problem…
…then we had to position it correctly, far away from unknowing reindeer antlers and tourist ankles. Finally we finished our job, with some assistance from Kristof who is a magician with the electrical tape. Here we are on top (of the world).
Oh, and speaking of reindeer, we’ve been practically bumping into a couple on our commute everyday now.
This one needed to cool off in a patch of snow due to the fairly mild temperatures.
Once we had our power sources secured, we set up our PITT tag readers. We currently have 5 nests where at least one of the pair of birds has a PITT tag and 5 antennas up and running! The antennas measure when the birds come in and out of their nests, which we’ll use to see how long the birds spend feeding their chicks and how often they visit them. It’ll be exciting to see what the antennas have to say, once we get them downloaded onto our ToughBook computer.
So far no chicks, but we did find out first starred egg (Yahoo)! Also spotted today was a downy little snowbunting chick hopping around on the rocks. We’ve got about 115 nests mapped out for chick monitoring, and our fingers (knot our cables) crossed.
Believe it or knot, we’ve had some time for relaxation in the station too. We celebrated our Polish friend Mariusz’s birthday last night with much merry and music making. 
Zach delivered on the fiddle and Professor Karnovsky worked wonders with a guitar.
I was taught how to play cribbage and how to get my tongue knotted up in some Polish tonguetwisters. Also I learned some important Polish words: Drink! Polar bear! Bohemian Waxwing! Unfortunatly I can’t remember the word for goodbye, so I’ll just say Czesc for now!