4th July

Today I got one of my big wishes up here fulfilled! I got a phonecall some time ago from a Swede who wanted to come to Longyearbyen to see some arctic birds. I said yes and took him with me birding. On his list of birds that he wanted to see the most there were Little Auk (Alkekonge), Brünnick's Guillemot (Polarlomvi), Ivory Gull (Ismåke) and King Eider (Praktærfugl). These four I could almost guarantee him that we could find around Longyearbyen, but the bird which was highest up on his list (and on mine) was Ross' Gull (Rosenmåke) and he understood that this species was more or less impossible to get on the list of seen birds around Longyearbyen. But he got to see all the four "normal" species, and we got to see a female King Eider with a brood of four chicks. this was something that I had wanted to see for a long time.