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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