New tracking technology reveals birds’ epic and amazing journeys. Smaller and lighter tracking devices are opening up whole new insights into behaviour, movements and migrations: here.
SO MUCH FOR SAVING THE WORLD’S SEEDS “The Norwegian Government is redesigning parts of the Global Seed Vault [in Svalbard], after a record warm summer caused permafrost to melt and flood the entrance.” [ABC Rural]
Today, after the ptarmigan and red-throated diver in the morning, and the shoveler ducks later, is the afternoon of 8 June in Svalbard. We say goodbye to the polar bear … err … to the polar bear image on the traffic sign, and to the snowy mountain behind it 🙂
On the opposite side of the road, not far from where the shovelers were, snow buntings.
This bird species is rare in Svalbard. The book Birds and Mammals of Svalbard, page 187, says less than twenty individuals have ever been seen on this Arctic archipelago.
So says the site svalbardbirds.com. It adds that recently, shovelers have only been seen in Svalbard in 1996, 1997, 2007 and 2013.
We saw the shoveler couple again, on the next day, 8 June 2013, at about the same spot. Eventually, they flew away.
But later that day, they were back again.
The day after 8 June, 9 June 2013, Ole Edvard Torland made these photos of a shoveler couple, very probably the same couple, in Adventdalen valley. Ole Edvard Torland writes the ducks were disturbed by a great skua. There are no records after June 9 of these two birds. Did they decide that after all, Svalbard was too Arctic for them?
Spitsbergen, 7 June 2013. On the side of the road opposite the common eider duck colony, the Adventdalselva river flows. At this time of the year, the ice is melting. Many ice floes flow down the river.
Finally for today, an Arctic fox in the eider colony. It steals an egg. Probably a fox who knows better than other foxes that the dogs can’t get out of their cages.
A glaucous gull couple standing on the snow behind the eider duck colony.
Sometimes, they sit on the poles around the dog cages.
Just past the dog cages, where the Adventdalen road begins, a polar bear traffic sign. It warns about polar bears in the whole archipelago.
This polar bear on a warning traffic sign was the only polar bear which we saw in Spitsbergen (except for a stuffed one at the airport, and polar bears as depicted as symbols of Svalbard on buildings).
In the river valley opposite the dog kennel, a ringed plover.
Svalbard’s Polar Bears and the effects of climate change – in pictures: here.
We went to Antarctica to see the penguins, and we certainly did. But we saw so much more wildlife: orcas and elephant seals and leopard seals and many different seabirds. My favorite is the Arctic tern, a little bird that migrates further every year than any other in the world… from the Antarctic to the Arctic, and back – 20,000 miles every year.
Spitsbergen, 7 June 2013. After the black guillemots of the sea near the mouth of the river of Bjørndalen valley, we go to the east. More Arctic terns have arrived from their long journey from the Antarctic, to near the artificial islets, made especially for them here.
The male pectoral sandpiper is still doing his courtship flights, with their U-u-u sound. Still, no pectoral sandpiper female.
Not far away, a snow bunting couple. Again and again, they fly to where they are very probably building a nest.
The book Birds and Mammals of Svalbardsays about snow buntings:
They usually place the nest in rocky crevices, under rock slabs, in screes or in buildings, well out of sight. Snow buntings will also use artificial nest boxes.
Where this couple are building their nest is obviously artificial. It is a wooden box with rocks inside it. But, did people put this box and these rocks here to help nesting snow buntings?
Snow Bunting nest boxes can be placed almost anywhere in tundra habitats. Snow Buntings will nest in boxes on the ground, on posts, or on a house in alpine, wet or moist tundra areas. However, nest boxes on the ground may allow easy access to predators.
The female snow bunting builds the nest alone, though the male often accompanies her to and from the nest site and occasionally even picks up nesting material and offers it to her.
We saw both the male and female repeatedly flying to the probable nest spot. Maybe this couple, or the relatively short time of our observations, was not representative of the species.
Not only the snow buntings were present. A reindeer was there as well.
And dunlins. Sometimes up in the air, in a courtship display flight.
And sometimes on the marshy tundra floor or in a puddle, looking for food.