Visit to the polar bear land

Svenskøya (Swedish island) in a paranormal weather.

King Karls Land is an island group east of Svalbard's main islands. It's know of very bad and cold (high Arctic) weather prevalent to this area, but also because of it has the highest density of polar bear dens (hides under snow where polar bear females are giving birth for their young) on Svalbard. It's very restricted and conserved area, because of the polar bears. One has to be very lucky to get the permission to visit these islands. For example, boats are not allowed to go even close to these islands. Needless to say that visiting the place has been one of my big dreams even since I came to Svalbard.

Last week we were lucky. A kind offer from my bosses. We were asked to join for an ivory gull counting trip heading to the islands. Weather was not good in Longyearbyen, but turned to amazing when approaching King Karls Land. Some minus degrees, blue sky and fresh breeze. Just-few-times-in-a-year weather for this area. The trip was fairly memorable...The place reminded me of Rijpfjorden. It must be the place to be. I love remote areas with harsh climate.

Helicopter on a fueling stop in front of the legendary polar bear research cabin in Kongsøya.

Geology of Kongsøya (King's island) is rather stony, apart from the ice.

Kvalrossøya (Walrus island), located to Storfjorden, on a way home.

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About a gull

Ivory gull is a bird that is breeding in vicinity of the high north pack-ice zone. It takes small fish and crustaceans, like other small gull like species, but it is also commonly seen feeding on seal corpses killed by a polar bear. These corpses are probably a significant part of the diet of this weird animal.

As a small species it probably can't compete most decent breeding sites with other seabirds such as kittiwakes. Thus small ivory gull colonies are found from inaccessible places such as nunataks (mountain tops in middle of glaciers, photo below) around the archipelago. Studying these gulls insists cool helicopter flights between mountain tops. Sometimes field assistants get lucky and are asked to join to have fun with the big guys and the flying machine...

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Run, hatching time!

Chicks of the birds nesting on Svalbard start hatching late June the peak occurring in early July. Barnacle geese (in photo) typically start the hatching period, seabirds following a week later. This time means extreme haste for those who are studying the birds. Days are spent on the field, evenings preparing for the next trip and nights out looking after the birds with loggers that can be mounted on adults after the chicks have hatched. This means no blogging for next few weeks.

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Photo of the Day - Brünnich's guillemot

Brünnich's guillemot is an auk species closely related to more southern distributed common guillemot. It is feeding on crustaceans and small fish, if available, and thus it can reproduce more north than common guillemot which is extensively feeding on capelin and herring (small silvery fishes). These fishes are scarce this high north. Brünnich's guillemot is very abundant up here and thus it is one of the most intensively studied species by Norwegian Polar Institute. This year's program includes mounting geolocation tags on a leg of bunch of birds. These loggers are able to calculate the location of the bird with accuracy of some kilometers by recording sun parameters (when sun is highest on the sky and when it sets, if it does). Loggers also record dive profiles of the birds and produce important data for conservation and population management applications.

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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.

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