June 10th

Yet another nice bird was walking around our traps today. We are used to seeing Sanderlings (Sandløper), Dunlins (Myrsnipe) and Ringed Plovers (Sandlo) around the traps, but today there was a more celb guest. A Pactoral Sandpiper (Alaskasnipe) was walking around in between the traps, before it figured that this was not a safe place to stay, and wandered off. I grabbed my camera and managed to get some ok photos of the bird while it was feeeding together with the Purples.

June 9th

This day I was in for a great surprise! I was ringing Purple Sandpipers (Fjæreplytt) for a project that aims to map the migration-route and winter-sites of the Svalbard-population of Purple Sandpipers, when a somewhat different bird caught my attention in one of the traps. I ran over to it and in it there was a rather angry female Red-necked Phalarope (Svømmesnipe). I put her in a bag and collected the Purples that had gone in other traps and went back up to the other guy I was ringing with. He got the honor of ringing the first ringed Red-necked Phalarope on Svalbard. And after it was ringed and we had a photo-session the bird flew away, ready to start the breeding season on Svalbard with a brand new shining metal-ring around its left leg.

June 4th

From this day there is not much to report, except for my first Northern Wheatear (Steinskvett) of Svalbard. This was a female that was everything but photogenic, so I just managed to get some poor documentation-photos of this one.

June 2nd

This was to be a day of a big little bird. The day began with me photographing a female King Eider (Praktærfugl) at one of the ponds next to the dogyard.

The day before there was seen a Green Sandpiper (Skogsnipe) in some ponds further in, but I had not been succsessfull in my hunt for it yet. But I had to try again to get to see it, and suddnely, in between the tussock and among three Purple Sandpipers (Fjæreplytt) and a female King Eider was a small vader with bright white underside and dark back. The binoculars came up to the eyes and I could confirm that it was the Green Sandpiper. This is the first individual of this species that is seen on Spitsbergen.

When I drove back into town I stopped to photograph the Common Eiders that are breeding there. The males are real beauties, and I will add a nice profile-picture of a male, and just to make it a bit more interesting; this is the Svalbard-subspecies Borealis.

June 1st

Gulls and geese were the highlights of this day too. The first thing I saw when I came to the dogyard was a second-year Black-headed Gull (Hettemåke), and when I turned my head 180 degrees around I saw a third-year Herring Gull (Gråmåke) feeding on a dead male Common Eider. The Herring Gulls are not too common up here, and its even more rare to see the young birds.

At Hotellneset I found one of the two pairs of Brent geese, and again I got to photograph them.

May 31st

Once again I got to watch Black-headed Gull (Hettemåke) here in Longyearbyen. But the difference from the last two times was that this time it was two 2nd year-birds.

When I drove up the valley after having seen these two gulls I were looking for the Red (Grey) Phalaropes (Polarsvømmesnipe) in the small ponds in the valley, but I got very pleased to see that it was its cousin, the Red-necked Phalarope (Svømmesnipe) that were swimming in circles in Lomdammen. This female acted just like all the phalaropes usually does when I see them, and couldnt care less about my prescence a few metres away.

When I did a last trip up the valley at about elleven in the evening a big pale bird that caught flight caught my attention. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and got my binoculars up. the bird that flew off was a Bar-headed Goose (Stripegås)!! I tried to get a couple of documentation photos, but the distance was far too long to get any photos where you could see anything of importance. I drove along the road and managed to pass by the bird after two kilometres and threw up the camera and managed to get some pictures like the ones under here. They show pale wings with a broad black end-bar to the wings, and should be enough to exclude the other pale birds that might be of confusion risks.

May 29th

This day was of quite high quality when it comes to birds, or at least I think so. The highlights for me were a beautiful male King Eider (Praktærfugl) which allowed me to photograph it at close range and two pairs of Brent Geese (Ringgås), of which one of them was a bit weary but allowed me to photograph them at an OK distance.

Of other nice birds I finally got some photos of Ivory Gulls (Ismåke) on ice. Even though I get asked by everyone that gets up here of where the easiest place to find Ivory Gulls is, they are a daily sight here in Longyearbyen and I show everybody who wants to see them the way to the dogyard.

I got some more nice photos of some of the Teals (Krikkand) that have been in the valley for a while, and I just couldnt resist photographing a male Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) which were posing nicely next to the road.

When I drove back out of the valley I went one more trip down to the delta and again found the Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke) which has been there for a while. And yet again it was not afraid of being photographed.

The last bird I was pleased to get to photograph a dark morph Arctic Skua (mørk Tyvjo). It was very little afraid of the approaching car, and its only because of my lack of knowledge of what to do with the settings on my camera that the pictures didnt get any better than this.

May 28th

Today I spotted a two-year-old Black-headed Gull. It was sat next to the private dogyard, and gave me some quite nice photos of all the good caracters.

May 27th

Today I got to photograph quite a few nice birds. I found several young Kittiwakes (Krykkje) at Hotellneset, and among them were one which had very red legs. I used all my books before I finally could put any doubts away, and it was clear that it was just a Kittiwake with strange colour on its feet.

Two-year-old with reddish legs

Two-year-old who wants a nesting-partner

Two-year-old showing off its wings

The Dunlin (Myrsnipe) was still wandering around in the middle of the approximately 50 Purple Sandpipers (Fjæreplytt) at Tuedammene, and in Lomdammen the first pair of (Great) Ringed Plovers (Sandlo) had arrived.

Alongside the Ringed Plovers a few pairs of King Eiders (Praktærfugl) were resting and swimming, and they were an irresistible target for my camera.

When I came back to the private dogyard a male King Eider in amongst all the Common Eiders (Ærfugl). What intentions he had in there I dont know, but I do know that he looked stunning where lay.

Driving out of town again I spotted two male Tufted Ducks (Toppand), where one of them had some strange coloration on the bill. The black spot on the tip of the bill was prolonged backwards onto the top of the bill.

May 26th

Today the first pair of Red (Grey) Phalaropes (Polarsvømmesnipe) had arrived in Lomdammen, and they both acted like they usually do, they were very happy to be photographed and I got some nice photos of both of them. The female The male