ИСТИНА

According to our earlier observations, over 18,000 waders, with Great Knot Calidris tenuirostris as the dominant species, utilize the mudflats of the Khairuzovo-Belogolovaya estuary (western Kamchatka) during their stopover in the end of July and beginning of August. With a surface area of about 45 km2, these mudflats are the largest of all the mudflats in the estuaries of the western coast of Kamchatka. The structure of the mudflats is rather diverse and at least four different types of mudflat can be distinguished based on satellite images Landsat7/Landsat8. Analysis of data in the available literature shows that at least three wader species that are long-distance migrants and occur in large numbers (Great Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit and Black-tailed Godwit) are not found on the peninsula to the south of the Khairuzovo-Belogolovaya and Moroshechnaya estuaries. We assume that these species leave the peninsula from that area and begin their migration to East Asia stopovers. In 2015, the All-Russian Institute for Nature Protection, with the participation of the Mohammed bin Zyed fund and the Oriental Bird Club organized an expedition with the aim of further research at this stopover. In our report we provide preliminary results of our surveys in the Khairusovo-Belogolovaya estuary in 2015. They include the structure of the migration stopover, changes in species composition from mid-July to midSeptember 2015 and the results of resighting of individually marked birds.