June 15th

An early morning trip resulted in this Greylag Goose (Grågås) at Hotellneset. I guess that it is the same goose that has been seen in the dogyard for a while, hence why I only took some quick photos of it.

In the afternoon I had promised one of my colleagues to show her the Red Phalarope (Polarsvømmesnipe). I think it is about time that she got to see it since she has been living here for the last ten years! But first some photos of a beautiful pair of Long-tailed Ducks (Havelle) that were swimming in Isdammen.

The star of the evening were found in the valley. A pair of Red Phalaropes were feeding in a little pond, and I managed to get my colleague to get great views of them. She said that she was a bit baffled by their small size, but then again, in Norwegian they will be covered by the group "Small waders".

June 8th

Today I managed to get some closer pictures of the Gadwall (Snadderand), but the sun was shining against me so the pictures did not become as nice as I would have liked them to be. But there is no question to which species it is. The Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) in the bacground is nice for size-comparison. 

 

The three Mallard (Stokkand) males are still hanging around in the valley, and they also deserved to be put on the blog I think.

I even took the time to take some close-ups of the Common Eiders (Ærfugl) of the ssp. borealis to show theire beauty to those of you who are not fortunate enough to have them as youre closest neighbours.

The Greylag Goose (Grågås) is still hanging around, and it does not seem to have any intentions of leaving the area around town.

The Reg/Grey Phalaropes (Polarsvømmesnipe) have started to lay theire eggs, and this picture shows one of the nests, where the female is lying on teh eggs in the tussoc, and the male is stood in front of her. This nest was found accidentally when I stopped my car, so to not create more disturbance than nessecary I took a few quick photos before I left the place.

The Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke) that has been frequenting the delta quite regularly was there again today, and as the two first pictures show it was beeing chased around by the Glaucous Gulls (Polarmåke) in between the times it was feeding along side them.

May 28th

Today was a nice, sunny, and bird-rich day. To start off with I got this picture of two male Goldeneyes (Kvinand) flying by in the delta. This is a regular visitor in spring and I was awaiting theire arrival.

The Purple Sandpipers (Fjæreplytt) have allready started to build theire nest-cups on teh tundra, and this specimen was actually ringed last year in the delta and is flag-tagged with a lime-colored flag.

The Dunlins (Myrsnipe) are also getting into their territories, and are displaying more or less the entire day. They are quite nice to work with, and are not too afraid when you approach them.

The Common Eiders (Ærfugl) have gotten back to the dog-yard, and are now giving great photo-opportunities. This male was stood only a few meters from my car when I photographed him, and the bright yellow on his bill shows that this is most definately of the subspecies hyperborea.

The Greylag Goose (Grågås) is still found in amongst the Eiders, and today I got some shots of it where it has got a green tide-line from the algal-bloom in one of the ponds.

This Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) was sleeping at Isdammen. I took this picture for two reasons. First, because it was a very pretty sight, and second because I wanted to show the difference between sleeping Barnacle- and Canada Goose (Kanadagås).

These two pictures are of the two presumed ssp. parvipes Canada Geese. They were feeding in Isdammen, and eventually went to sleep.

The probable ssp. interior Canada Goose at the dogyard on the other hand did not want to sleep, and just kept eating as much as it could. But eventually a rough day takes its toll, and it too fell asleep.

Todays big highlight for me was this adult Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke) that showed well in the delta. Since I have gotten so used to the Glaucous Gull (Polarmåke), seeing its smaller relative makes me appreciate how big the Glaucous really is. The Iceland Gull even gave me the opportunity to photograph it while in flight today.

May 27th

Yet another day in the world of ducks and geese, with a couple of additional nice birds. Ill start off todays blog with some pictures of the Canada Goose (Kanadagås) which spent most of the day feeding next to the dogyard next to town. This is probably one of the pair that we found a few days ago. There has been quite a bit of conversations about the which subspecies these birds belong to. There were two ssp that were looked upon as most possible, interior and parvipes. Due to the long neck, and a size similar or larger to Pink-footed Goose (Kortnebbgås), parvipes was soon removed from the short-list, and we now think this might be interior. I would be very happy if anyone with knowledge would comment on which ssp this one might belong to. I tried to get pictures where its possible to compare the size with Barnacle Goose (Hvitkinngås) and Pink-footed Goose.

One of the less frequent visitors among the breeding birds of Svalbard is the Brent Goose (Ringgås). Today there were two pairs at the lagoon at Hotellneset. These nice, small geese are allways nice to see. I even got to see some action, the male of one of the pairs chased off the other male when he came a bit to close to his female. Then the first pair followed up with some courting behaviour.

We are not quite sure where this Greylag Goose (Grågås) comes from. The first Greylag that came up this year was a lone bird, then there was a pair of Greylags that stayed at Hotellneset and at the airport. This lone bird might be one of these, or it might be a new bird. Anyway it is a nice sight in among all the Pink-foots and Barnacles.

Also in the same place as the Canada and the Greylag Goose the two Mallard (Stokkand) males were feeding along. Allways nice to see uncommon birds in the sunshine.

Other than these birds, the only birds that I can recall that are worth mentioning are a female Red-necked Phalarope (Svømmesnipe) and an adult Iceland Gull (Grønlandsmåke).