August 30th

To be guiding people around in my "backyard" here in Longyearbyen is quite rewarding when you like to put a smile on other peoples faces! I were guiding two swedes, where only one of them were really interested in birds. As it was him that had booked me I started looking up the birds that were of interest to him, and actually managed to find a few species that were new to him. The birding was quite slow with few individuals, but in late august in the Arctic many of the interesting birds have allready left. Since the swedes wanted to see the King Eider (Praktærfugl) I drove along the coast to Bjørndalen to try to locate one. And in amongst a group of four Common Eider (Ærfugl) there was a female King Eider. While stopping to look for more Kings, I noticed a regular visitor in the area. Out of nothing, an Arctic Fox (Fjellrev) appeared. It did not stay long, the weather was dark and heavy amd the photos did not become the best, but my two clients were very pleased with an encounter of the fox at a distance of six (!) meters!

After I had dropped of the two happy swedes, I took a trip to look for some of my gulls. I managed to find two color-ringed Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke), one from each of the projects. It is nice to see that the gulls that I have ringed with black color-rings are doing fine, and also to confirm that the old gulls with red color-rings are still hanging around Longyearbyen.