Photo of the Day - Grumantbyen

Grumantbyen is an old Soviet Union time mining town established on the coast of Isfjorden not further than 7 kilometers from Longyearbyen. The town was abandoned in 1961 because of weak profitability due to saw-tooth formed coal layers. Mining was more expencive than the profit got from the coal. Nowadays Grumant is just another old Russian mining town attracting curious tourists and locals for occassional visits. For our interests Grumant offers the Kittiwake house (white house down left on the photo), where kittiwakes have established a colony. This colony is easy to access and an effordless place to study the ecology of this common gull like seabird. Kittiwakes are nesting on window sills and can be picked up like mellow apples for biotelemetry studies. A pleasant bird to work with.