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Ivory Gulls galore!

To: "birdchat" <>
Subject: Ivory Gulls galore!
From: "Wim Vader" <>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:46:46 +0200

                                                   IVORY GULLS GALORE!

Once more I have had the chance to co-lead a course on Arctic benthic marine 
biology, given by UNIS, the University studies on Svalbard in Longyearbyen, the 
capital of Svalbard, the large archipelago North of Norway in the Arctic ocean, 
maybe still better known to many of you as Spitsbergen. This course, with 16 
students from several nations, includes a two weeks cruise on our research 
vessel 'Jan Mayen', this time we visited fjords on the west and north coast, as 
well as a station in the pack ice at 81*44'N.

Around 1 September summer is almost gone on Svalbard, and Longyearbyen had in 
fact already had its first snow a few days ago. But now fresh snow was only 
found on the surrounding hills, while the town itself was still quite green, 
with a silver sheen many places, caused by the plumes of the Arctic Cotton 
Grass Eriophorum. A few flowers were still in bloom, but not many, and there 
are very few birds around. Most conspicuous are the Arctic Terns that still 
occupy the nesting colonies, although they are no longer as dangerously 
aggressive as they are in summer. Most of the Snow Buntings that are such a 
cheerful presence here in summer are now gone south, but a few still linger 
here and there. On the fjord there are Black Guillemots of the large Arctic 
race, as well as yellow-billed Eider Ducks, Kittiwakes and Glaucous Gulls. The 
roly-poly Svalbard reindeer potter unconcernedly through town, blissfully 
unaware of the fact that the hunting season is just around the corner..

The trip on Jan Mayen is definitely not a holidays cruise, even though the 
students do all the heavy and dirty work on deck. Arctic waters are very 
diverse for my favourite animals, the amphipods (this forum is hardly the right 
place to explain why this is so), and before the end of the two weeks I have 
gathered no less than 125 different species of these critters (1/4 of all 
invertebrate species caught!), as well as tried to teach the students how to 
identify them. Especially the samples with a bottom sledge are very rewarding, 
but they take a lot of sorting and for many days I scarcely get out of the lab, 
let alone up the four stairs to the bridge, where the birds can be watched. We 
had the opportunity to take two samples in Questrenna, the deep water north of 
the islands (1000 and 1500m deep), and as this area, which earlier often was 
ice-bound, has been very little sampled , we have found lots of interesting 
things there. We have already found and described several new species of 
amphipods from this area, and also this time I think I have some novelties.

For birds Svalbard in September is anyway not a hotspot of diversity. Fulmars, 
clearly divided in the two colour morphs, with the dark birds getting more 
dominant the further north one gets, draw their endless stiff-winged ellipses 
around the ship everywhere we go, and also Kittiwakes are ubiquitous, the young 
in their somewhat confusing winter plumage, that made one of the students 
announce a Ross's Gull! There are also many bulky Glaucous Gulls, with the 
first year immatures often surprisingly dark, and on the west coast they are 
often accompanied by a few Great Black-backed Gulls. Now and then Puffins 
skitter out of the way, and in the narrow sounds small flocks of Little Auks 
(Dovekies) wheel. And that's about it!! The very scenic Magdalenefjord (visited 
by all cruise ships) holds eiders, and a small flock of Purple Sandpipers 
skimmed the inner basin, where we took a series of grab samples. Brunnich's 
Guillemots (Thick-billed Murres), the most numerous seabird in Svalbard after 
the Little Auk, are surprisingly scarce and I saw only a few on the entire 
cruise. Arctic Skuas (Parasitic Jaegers) were present around Longyearbyen (a 
pair even flew down the main road in town yesterday; apparently these kings of 
the air deign to act as common garbage scavengers now and then), while in the 
colder waters north and east a few Pomarine Skuas were encountered, all adults; 
one was even in the outer edge of the pack ice.

The pack ice was encountered at c 81*20'N, and we crashed for hours through the 
fast ice, in search fior the heavier floes of multiyear ice, where we planned 
to collect the ice amphipods that spend their entire life beneath the ice. The 
Jan Mayen is not an ice breaker, but it has a reinforced hull, so we can 
traverse not too thick ice; this causes so much banging and shaking, however, 
that it is impossible to work in the lab, so I see more of the surroundings 
here than in the open water. At the edge there are still stretches of open 
water and here one often encounters Little Auks and Black Guillemots, as well 
as various seals, most often Ringed Seals, but also Harp Seals and Bearded 
Seals---we saw Walruses elsewhere during the cruise. Among the many Kittiwakes 
and Glaucous Gulls now also the first immaculately white Ivory Gulls appear. 
They are the characteristic gulls of the pack ice and they will follow us all 
the way into the ice where there is no open water anywhere anymore (We had a 
few degrees frost here, which by the way did not prevent several students from 
taking a quick plunge in the        -1.8*C cold water behind the ship. The 
power of peer pressure!!). These small and very elegant Ivory Gulls are almost 
whiter than the ice (even where as now covered with a thin layer of fresh 
snow), so that they almost disappear from sight when flying over the ice. They 
clearly hate to land on water, and nearly always sit on the ice, albeit now and 
then on quite small and unstable floes in the water. When now and then they 
alight on the water to pick something up, they always immediately fly off 
again, The adults are all white, with black feet and bills, but the young birds 
have a more ivory colour, with many black dots on the wings and variously dark 
faces. Some are in fact so dark that at first sight they seem black-hooded.

It is hard to say how many Ivory Gulls we saw during our two days in the ice; 
as the birds often follow the ship for a while, counting is virtually 
impossible. But all in all there may well have been several hundreds; they were 
quite common everywhere, and for long stretches in the heavier ice the only 
birds present. I know how many birders dearly want to see an Ivory Gull, and 
this is clearly the right place for that. But of course there are serious 
logistic problems: this is not an easy area to get to!  I feel therefore very 
privileged to once more having had the opportunity to experience the wonders 
and mysteries of the pack ice, and I am most grateful to UNIS for giving me 
this chance. (And yes, we did encounter several Polar Bears, but every time i 
was asleep or in the lab, so I missed them all this time!)

                                                                     Wim Vader, 
Tromsø Museum
                                                                     9037 
Tromsø, Norway
                                                                    

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