May 12th

Today became a pretty good day! It started with two pairs of Northern Pintails (Stjertand), three male and one female Tufted Ducks (Toppand) and a 1 cy/2k Herring Gull (Gråmåke). These were all seen when I set up the second of my gull-traps, and hopefully I will be trapping gulls there on Saturday. These were all seen in the delta, and I continued out towards the mouth of the fiord to look for more birds. At Hotellneset I first came to see a 3cy/4k Herring Gull roosting with Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke). Further along there were five Barnacle Geese (Hvitkinngås) feeding, and on the other side of the road were two pairs of Pink-footed Geese grazing on the dead vegetation. Other thanthese there were quite a lot of Kittiwakes (Krykkje) and Glaucous Gulls flying along the shore, and Common Eiders (Ærfugl) and King Eiders (Praktærfugl) were all over the fiord. When I drove home I went by the harbour to take some shots of the Bearded Seal (Storkobbe) that was lying there. It did not care that there was a tiny human stood some meters away taking photos of it. As a matter of fact it was so calm that I did not get the pictures I wanted, but thats how nature is. You cant decide how it is to act.


Northern Pintails grazing in the shallows

Tufted Ducks relaxing alongside Nrthern Pintails

1cy/2k Herring Gull along with Glaucous Gulls

3cy/4k Herring Gull roosting with Glaucous Gulls

Barnacle Goose

Bearded Seal relaxing on the ice

April 6th

Finally I managed to get some photos of birds up here again. The winter is very long when I cant use my camera, but the spring just feels so much better when I finally can go out and take photos of my feathered friends again. Today I managed to find 40 + Black Guillemots (Teist), 2 Brünnick's Guillemot (Polarlomvi) and four Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke). It may not be the largest number of birds anyone have heard about, but for me this is the start of a new fantastic season on Svalbard. My gull-trap has been visited, and now I am just awaiting the color-rings that I will be using, and then ringing-season will start. From now on I will probably be posting quite regularly on the blog, so dont forget about it.