May 7th

A cloudy day, with rain going over to snow gave nice views of a 3rd cy/4k Herring Gull (Gråmåke). It sat in between the Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke) at the garbage dump, and even showed nicely when it took a short flight just to change seating. There were about 70 Glaucous Gulls there today, and today they had brought four 1 cy/2k birds.

May 6th

I had an hour of watching today before I picked up my girlfriend from the airport. This resulted in that I refound the pair of Iceland Gulls (Grønlandsmåke) at Hotellneset. After having dropped my girlfriend off at home i went to the garbage dumå to try my luck at the Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke) again. When I arrived there were only about 30 adult birds there. I rigged the trap and started to wait. There was some movement in and out of the dump by the birds, but when I went to take down the trap again I realized that there had come more gulls than I was aware of. About 80 in total were feeding in the garbage. For the first time there were actually a few young birds around, and not just one or two. All age classes were present and showing well, and even the gull I ringed on the 1st of May was present, fighting valiantly for the best pieces of garbage.


Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull

Iceland Gull

Glaucous Gull 1cy/2k

Glaucous Gull 1cy/2k

Glaucous Gull 2cy/3k

Glaucous Gull 2cy/3k

Glaucous Gull 2cy/3k (behind) and 3cy/4k

Glaucous Gull 3cy/4k

Glaucous Gull 3cy/4k (left) and 2cy/3k

Galucous Gull 4cy+/5k+, JX001, ringed 01.may 2011

Snow Bunting male

Snow Bunting male

Snow Bunting male

May 5th

A rather boring day birdwise, except for the Greylag Gosse (Grågås) off course. It was still present and walking around in between the coal-remains. It was not at all afraid of my prescence, and actually lay down to sleep while I was there. Other than this I could barely find any other birds around. There were some Common Eiders (Ærfugl) and King Eiders (Praktærfugl) lying around in the fiord, but even at the garbage dump there were only about 30 Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke).

May 4th

Yet another good day for migrants up here in the frozen north! I was hoping for some new pictures of the Iceland Gulls (Grønlandsmåke) and the Golden Plover (Heilo) in the sunshine, but noen of them were to be found. But on the other hand I found even more interesting birds, at least to me they are. In the morning I had seen a brown bunting (buskspurv) amongst one of the flocks of Snowbuntings (Snøspurv), but I couldnt really see which species it was due to the distance of the observation. So this was my main goal of the afternoon bird-trip. And on the second stop that I did, I found him! A beautiful male Lappland Longspur (Lappspurv). It was feeding in the distance in between a flock of Snowbuntings. I managed to get off a few poor record-shots before a tractor came by and scared it off together with the Snow Buntings. I was pretty pleased with my observation and started driving again. When I came to the dung-heap outside of the stable I stopped on old habit to have a look there as well. First there was nothing, then I got to see the Lappland Longspur feeding in the horse-droppings, then I saw a female Lappland Longspur, nad two minutes later a third one, a male, appeared. Here I was sat looking at three (!) Lappland Longspurs, a rare visitor to Svalbard, which only a very few have ever seen up here. Even though the distance was a bit to long, my camera got to shoot off many pictures to make sure I at least had a chance of getting a useable picture of the buntings. After having sat ten minutes looking at these ones I decided to go look for the Iceland Gulls again, but of course they werent there. So after having scanned through the flocks of Eiders and King Eiders I started driving towards home. And there, in the middle of nowhere, there was a Greylag Goose(Grågås)! I have heard rumors about that a Pink-footed Goose (Kortnebbgås) is suppoesde to be up here already, but this was most definitely not a Pink-footed one! It was just gently grazing next to the road, but of course with the sun directly behind it and at a bit too long distance. But at least there is not any doubt about which species it was. None of todays pictures are of very good quality, but there is a real chance thet these will be the only pictures of these two species this season so I am posting them anyway.


Lappland Longspur, female

Lappland Longspur, male 1

Lappland Longspur, male 1

Lappland Longspur, 2 males + 1 female

Lappland Longspur, male 2

Greylag Goose drinking

Greylag Goose feeding

Greylag Goose alerted

May 3rd

Oh what an evening this turned out to be! The day started out grey and rainy, and the poor weather continued during the day. But when I decided to head out to do some birdwatching it had changed from rain to light snow. When I started to drive towards Hotellneset and Vestpynten I was hoping that the mild weather had brought with it some migrants or other interesting birds. While driving through the puddles and the holes in the road I was dreaming of beauties as Ross' Gull (Rosenmåke) and Spectacled Eider (Brilleærfugl). But dont worry, none of them appeared! I was also hoping to maybe see the Golden Plover (Heilo) that I saw briefly some days ago, and this one did show up! A beautiful adult male of the race 'altifrons', "Northern" Golden Plover. I first took a few record shots of it through the window on the passenger side, but was crossing my fingers that it would stay in the area when I returned with the driver-side towards the bird for better pictures. Going back I stopped briefly for a record shot of a pair of King Eiders (Praktærfugl) that were sleeping on the sea, and started scanning for the plover. When I had given up on finding it in this location, I became aware of a movement twenty meters from the car. There it was! I drove fifteen meters along the road, and it stayed where it was! During the next fifteen minutes I took probably 200 pictures of the bird when it fed about ten to fifteen meters from the car. I was very happy when I drove towards town, and it was just on pure habit that I stopped to check an apparent Glaucous Gull (Polarmåle) for color ring, and I had to look twice to make sure that my impression was correct. This had to be a Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke)! Or.....? The bird flew off when I had just gotten a couple of record shots of it, and the pictures seemed to head towards Iceland, but it had to be a big male if it was. I looked towards where the bird flew, and I managed to see where it sat down, and there was another gull sat next to it that made me even more certain of the species. I reversed the car very slowly so that I could get alongside the two, and incredibly enough....they stayed! I shifted between photographing both of them, and checked the pictures. This was something I had wanted to see since last summer! I was sitting twenty meters from a pair of Iceland Gulls! They were calling to each other, and were obviously a couple. With any luck I will find them in a few months on nest with eggs or chicks. My new camera really got to test itself now! Snow in the air, snow on the ground, poor light and very light-colored birds. I can highly recomend the Nikon D300s after this day! At an ISO-value of 1250 it took good pictures! I hope that you who read this will enjoy the pictures almost as much as I enjoyed taking them.

King Eider pair

Iceland Gull male

Iceland Gull female

Iceland Gull male

Iceland Gull female

Iceland Gull male

Iceland Gull male

Iceland Gull male flying

Iceland Gull male flying

Iceland Gull male taking off

April 28th

Today I was supposed to be catching my first Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke), but the gulls didnt like the mesh of fishingline over teh trap. This resulted in several gulls sat on top of the trap, but none inside it. The good things of the day though were three new color ringed gulls of the year, and the highest count of birds on site. There were 83 adult Glaucous Gulls at the garbage dump. In addition a female Northern Wheatear (Steinskvett) flew by, this was a possible subspecies leucorrhoa due to the dark coloration of the bird. The gulls were quite amorous today, and I saw three matings, and several couples that were flirting.

Red RJ

The next four pictures are of Red HF showing courtship behaviour with her mate. You can see that she is a female due to teh much larger size of the male.