Been counting the local steller's eiders at least once a week this winter 🤓

#birds

The auks are back in town! 🥳

Last week a few smaller groups of guillemots started flying by the bird cliff, then we had a few days of complete quietness.

And today around 15.000 guillemots, a few hundred common eiders, 30 king eiders, and a few hundred gulls are back.

VERY hard to focus on work with all this activity observable from our living room 😭

#birding #seabirds

Having a meeting with seabird researchers later today, so suggested we’d have it at my place “so we can watch the auks and gulls return to the bird cliff meanwhile”.

The bird cliff view today:

it's weird duck season 

between 28-34 steller's eiders in the harbor every time I check now, probably more arriving throughout late february/early march, and later in spring they'll leave us and move on to their breeding grounds.

#birding #birdwatching #stellersEider #ducks

The king eider has arrived in town 🥰

The past few days a male king eider has been hanging out with a flock of around 30 steller's eiders in the harbor. Also long-tailed ducks and common eiders around.

#birding #birdPhotography #birdwatching

The local kittiwake hotel is broken down 💔

In 2023, the community came together to build a solution for the kittiwakes nesting on the houses: a large "hotel".

Rather than installing spikes, glue, or other methods that have been proven to be both harmful towards the kittiwakes and ineffective in avoiding nests, the solution was to build a place where they were welcome.

And it worked! Last year over 400 pairs were nesting on the hotel, that's over 80% of the local kittiwake population. It was a beautiful example of how things can be done differently.

This year the building got a new owner, who, allegedly with support of the municipality's admin, tore it down, just two weeks before the kittiwakes are expected to return  

Now the question is what the kittiwakes will do when they return to their trusted nesting spot and notice it gone: move back to the cliff they fled, move to a different city, or take over the buildings and fishing structures right next to their destroyed breeding spot?

Research from other cities shows they'll just occupy the buildings in the area, which unfortunately will increase conflict with the neighbors. Curious to see what will happen here, but in any case a very sad sight 💔