Finally! Spring has arrived in the High Arctic!

Suddenly, four days ago, spring came to Spitzbergen! Most places you will have a transition between winter and spring, but here it just appeared out of a snowstorm! I havent been doing too much birdwatching before this, but now my hopes of seeing new and interesting species up here are renewed tenfold!

Spring brought With it the first Pink-footed Geese (Kortnebbgås), a European Golden Plover (Heilo) and a pair of Mallards (Stokkand). This is my fifth and sixth Mallard up here, nad it is my first female, so I was quite happy to see these. Other people have seen Redwing (Rødvingetrost), Song Trush (Måltrost), Redpoll (Gråsisik), Shoveler (Skjeand) and Tufted Duck (Toppand) the last few days, so I guess I will have to be out looking now. :) Hopefully I will be getting better photos soon of the birds that are out there waiting for me.

Pair of Mallards on a very cloudy day and at quite som distance.....

Glaucous Gull Red/White ZS, ringed in Longyearbyen in 2007

June 27th, part 2

When the fox headed off I just felt the need to photograph this drake Mallard (Stokkand) which is almost into its eclipse-plumage. The nice reflection in the water also made this picture nice.

While I was photographing the Mallard, I recieved a call from Rune Edvardsen that there was an adult Sabine's Gull (Sabinemåke) further out in the fiord. Foxes and mallards I have seen lots of this year, but this beautiful gull gets my full attention when it is around.  I had seen a young bird earlier in the day, but did not manage to get any photos. But this bird was nice to us, and it showed well, before it suddenly figured that it should dissappear. And none of the three of us figured out how it had disappeared.

By some strange reason I have not got to photograph the Arcitc Skua (Tyvjo) earlier this year, but when the chance was there after the Sabine's Gull was gone, I got a few shots that shows this nice bird.

June 8th

Today I managed to get some closer pictures of the Gadwall (Snadderand), but the sun was shining against me so the pictures did not become as nice as I would have liked them to be. But there is no question to which species it is. The Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) in the bacground is nice for size-comparison. 

 

The three Mallard (Stokkand) males are still hanging around in the valley, and they also deserved to be put on the blog I think.

I even took the time to take some close-ups of the Common Eiders (Ærfugl) of the ssp. borealis to show theire beauty to those of you who are not fortunate enough to have them as youre closest neighbours.

The Greylag Goose (Grågås) is still hanging around, and it does not seem to have any intentions of leaving the area around town.

The Reg/Grey Phalaropes (Polarsvømmesnipe) have started to lay theire eggs, and this picture shows one of the nests, where the female is lying on teh eggs in the tussoc, and the male is stood in front of her. This nest was found accidentally when I stopped my car, so to not create more disturbance than nessecary I took a few quick photos before I left the place.

The Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke) that has been frequenting the delta quite regularly was there again today, and as the two first pictures show it was beeing chased around by the Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke) in between the times it was feeding along side them.

May 27th

Yet another day in the world of ducks and geese, with a couple of additional nice birds. Ill start off todays blog with some pictures of the Canada Goose (Kanadagås) which spent most of the day feeding next to the dogyard next to town. This is probably one of the pair that we found a few days ago. There has been quite a bit of conversations about the which subspecies these birds belong to. There were two ssp that were looked upon as most possible, interior and parvipes. Due to the long neck, and a size similar or larger to Pink-footed Goose (Kortnebbgås), parvipes was soon removed from the short-list, and we now think this might be interior. I would be very happy if anyone with knowledge would comment on which ssp this one might belong to. I tried to get pictures where its possible to compare the size with Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) and Pink-footed Goose.

One of the less frequent visitors among the breeding birds of Svalbard is the Brent Goose (Ringgås). Today there were two pairs at the lagoon at Hotellneset. These nice, small geese are allways nice to see. I even got to see some action, the male of one of the pairs chased off the other male when he came a bit to close to his female. Then the first pair followed up with some courting behaviour.

We are not quite sure where this Greylag Goose (Grågås) comes from. The first Greylag that came up this year was a lone bird, then there was a pair of Greylags that stayed at Hotellneset and at the airport. This lone bird might be one of these, or it might be a new bird. Anyway it is a nice sight in among all the Pink-foots and Barnacles.

Also in the same place as the Canada and the Greylag Goose the two Mallard (Stokkand) males were feeding along. Allways nice to see uncommon birds in the sunshine.

Other than these birds, the only birds that I can recall that are worth mentioning are a female Red-necked Phalarope (Svømmesnipe) and an adult Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke).