RINGED FULMAR Fulmarus glacialis

It is the oldest Fulmar we know of in the Faroe Islands, but in England they have one, that was read as 43+ years old.

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STARVING GREYLAG GEESE Anser anser

When Jens-Kjeld came home today, 3 starving wild Graylag geese were standing on the steps in front of our door. The two of them flew a short distance away, while the third just limped away. Jens-Kjeld offered them grain, but they did not want it, so they are obviously not used to eat grains.

When I (Jens-Kjeld) was on my way home from Urðin on Nólsoy on October 20, 2022, I found a dead Raven. Abraham and Bergur Mikladal ringed the Raven in Skálabotni on January 14, 2016.
The raven presumably died of bird flu?

STARVING AND DEAD LITTLE AUKS Alle alle

Many starving and dead Little Auks have been found in the Faroe Islands recently. The reason is probably due to the very bad weather that has been in the North Atlantic in the last couple of months. A cat had bitten the head of 3 of 5 Little Auks, that I have found the last two days.

A group of researchers from Wales, the Netherlands and Germany have together with Jens-Kjeld Jensen and Jógvan Thomsen since early in the summer 2021 been in Nólsoy examining the European Storm Petrel. There are several pilot projects, such as - where does the European Storm Petrel find its food? - is it influenced by the lights at the salmon farms? - and how will any planned offshore wind farm affect it?

The chick was about 14 days old when it was weighed on September 4, and then it weighed 24.7 g. When Anne Ausems weighed it again on September 16, it weighed 37.2 g

Cooperation between the Faroese Enviromental Agency and the University in Cardiff

12. September 2022: So far, 6 Storm petrel chicks have hatched in our nest boxes, and there are also 6 eggs that have not yet hatched. There is a possibility that other Storm petrels will also lay eggs in several of the other nest boxes.

The route of the bird. Directly 160 km. to the Shetland Islands, where it fished for the first time. After 2 days and having flown a total of 600 km, it was back in the nest to feed the young.

Each chick is weighed in its own muffin form, which is used only for it . This is to avoid any kind of infection between the Storm petrels in the colony at Nólsoy.

Videos

The Storm petrel returns to the nest and the chick

The parents care for the chick

The parents feed their chick

Nólsoy 05.11.2022: Today the last Storm Petrel chick had left the nest boxes Suðuri í Dølum. On November 1, 2022, the chick weighed 42.3 g, so we hope it will make the trip to South Africa.

The study of European Storm Petrel Hydrobates pelagicus is continuing in 2023

Nólsoy 09.09.2023. Team pictured (left to right): Jógvan Thomsen, Faroe Islands, Anne Ausems, Holland, Anna K. Znój, Polen, Rob Thomas, Wales, Zoe Deakin, Wales, Jade Philips, Wales, Jens-kjeld Jensen, Faroe Islands, Mark Bolton, Scotland and Ben Porter Wales.
Missing from photo: Sjúrður Hammer and Hannah Hereward, Wales.

In 2023, Ben Porter has been granted support for his PhD project at Nólsoy from the Faroese Research Council in collaboration with the Faroese Environment Agency. In this connection, he must use nest boxes. Jens-Kjeld Jensen and Jógvan Thomsen have made the nest boxes, and in this connection the people in the photograph have been to Nólsoy this summer. Anne Ausems also has a smaller project again with the Storm Petrels in the colony on the island.

The 72 nest boxes have been very successful, and only a very few of them have not been visited by Storm Petrels in the summer of 2023.

Five Storm Petrels had a GPS tag attached to their tail, and above you can see what one of them did after the logger was attached. First, it flew a short trip directly to the east, which took a day. Then it flew back home to feed the young, it took approximately 10 minutes. Then it flew a trip of 350 km. to Shetland, which took 2 days. It was thus on the wings for 3 days.

October/November 2023: An adult European Storm Petrel weighs 26 g on average. The heaviest young in the colony in Nólsoy in 2023 weighed 54 g., when the parents thought it was capable to take care of itself.

All indications are, that the Arctic tern bred twice this year and that no young survived from the first litter.

The situation seems to be the same in the Arctic tern colonies we know of - from Fugloy to Mykines.

AN ANXIOUS SPRING

On 25 May 2021, about 15-20 Gannets Morus bassanus sat for a whole day in the bow of a boat, fishing on the edge of Fugloyarbankin, according to Elith Godtfred. On May 30, 15 Gannets as well as a single Arctic tern sat on the same boat. There were also quite a few Herring gulls on board, but they preferred to be at the opposite end of the ship due to the presence of the Gannets.

When Oystercatchers can’t find food

Around the same time, a single Jack Snipe was found dead in Leynum. It was also killed by a cat.

This Glaucous gull Larus hyperboreus was ringed as a nestling 30.06.2020 in Kongsfjorden, Elefantsteinen (Arctic Ocean, Svalbard (Spitsbergen). It was found dead on 12.01.2021 near Haraldssund, Faroe Islands.
In addition to being ringed, it also had a GLS logger on the other leg, and when the Norwegians read the logger, they could see where the bird has been, since it was ringed last summer. See the map.

Jens-Kjeld and other from Nólsoy have fed this female eider for several years in Nólsoy. Some time ago, the eider disappeared from Nólsoy. When we went to Sandágerði on 30.06.2019, a female came running towards us. She ran past us and directly to Jens-Kjeld, and then he recognized her. See the movie clips below, and you will see and hear how it sounds, when old friends meet.

Movie 1

Movie 2

Movie 3

Movie 4

03.07.2019: The female eider has a nest with 4 eggs in the garden of Jens Mohr in Sandágerði, and we brought some fish to her. She was not stuck in the nest, but walked down to the sandy beach and back to the nest.

10.07.2019: The female was still restless, and 1 egg was broken in the nest. Therefore Jens-Kjeld decided to bring the female eider back to Nólsoy. The both of them went with the late ferry Ternan kl. 22.

Nólsoy 15.07.2019

The last white-spotted Raven was shot in 1902. We have therefore been in contact with Sotheby's in London, and they estimated a sales price of between 10,000 and 14,000 Euros.

THE ARCTIC TERN CHICKS IN NÓLSOY DIED FROM STARVATION IN 2018

On July 6th 2018 I went down to fish. There I was surrounded by at least 200 Arctic Terns, who were so hungry, that I could feed them with my hand. I immediately thought something was wrong. A few days later I went for a quick trip to the Arctic Tern colony in Stokkvík and there I found 20-25 dead, 2 almost dead approximately 10 days old, 2 almost fledged, but very skinny and 1 fledged chick in good condition. I was not attacked by the terns, and then a neighbor said, that the Terns in the colony began to be more quiet already a week before, and that they were not at all contemptuous.

There are 3 Arctic Tern colonies in Nólsoy. Two small in respectively Tjørnunes and Bólstad, and then possibly the largest in the Faroe Islands, located in Stokkvík. Around 4 July, there was a change in the Terns' behavior on Nólsoy - they did not defend the colonies so much more. On July 8, the 2 small colonies at Tjørnunes and Bólstad were completely abandened, and in the large colony of 6-700 breeding pairs in Stokkvík, more than half of the Terns were gone, and a short trip in the colony showed even more dead chicks. A new visit to the colony on the 12th of July was a very sad sight. Where there were supposed to be 1000-1500 alive and healthy chicks, hundreds of dead chicks had replaced them, some nests with eggs were seen and some miserable starving chicks were tumbling around. Not one old Tern was seen with sandeels in the beak, so the last alive chicks have no chance to survive, as they should preferably be fed by their parents for at least one more week.

The situation seems to be the same on Kalsoy.

In the evening of 12th of July the three of us - Marnar á Skúr, Hergeir Jacobsen and I (J-K.J.) sailed a trip around Nólsoy. In the 2-300 Kittiwake nests we only observed 8-10 chicks, the other nests were empty.
Nólsoy has (had) a large Puffin colony, where between 30.000 and 50.000 breeding pairs were estimated to breed in 1997. In this colony 8188 Puffins were caught in 1996 and again 13286 in 1999.
This evening kl. 19.30 there was not a single Puffin in the colony, and on the water there were no more than 150-200 Puffins in total. Without any old Puffin in the colony the few chicks will die very soon. The only thing that can save these last remaining chicks is if the food returns, as quick as it disappeared, around July 4th.

COMMON HOUSE MARTIN Delichon urbicum (Linnaeus, 1758)

Regardless, this is animal cruelty at the worst…

Read more about plastic in fulmars

Live coverage of a dissection of a Faroese fulmar chick stomach

New article shows, that the decline in the puffin colonies is not related to the increased population of Great Skuas, but due to lack of food and access of young birds in the puffin colonies.

Read the article

15.06.2015 I sailed a tour around Nólsoy with Hergeir and Marnar á Skúr.
We did not see any puffin fly or on land on the entire trip around the island, and there were only between 100 and 200 puffins on the water.
The only place we saw terns was on Tjørnunes, where there were maybe 100 in total. All the other places where there used to be terns, there were between 0 and 3 terns.
Otherwise we saw about 10 pairs of Black-backed Gull, some few guillemots and 4 gray seals.

The European Red List

We all know that a crow is wise, but I did not expect, that it would be directly smart. This crow was sitting in our garden the other day and mingled with a fat ball for the garden birds. Suddenly I noticed, that the crow had turned the hook upwards, so that fat ball was at the top instead of hanging underneath. I took some photographs, and when I watched them later I could see, that the clever crow was winding the net as the fat ball got smaller.

In December 2014 several dead Little Auks has been found. Most of them were young birds from last summer, and they have all died of hunger.
When there are strong winds for several days in a row, the Little Auk has difficulties finding enough food and many of them do not survive.
We must go back to the winters of 1997-98 to say, that it was common to find dead Little Auks on Nólsoy; but the other day 6 were found.
It is very common for the Little Auk to come on shore, when it is dying from hunger - as if it is afraid of drowning. Therefore, one can find dying or dead birds miles away from the coast. When you find them, they often look round and fat, but the reality is the opposite - they puff up their feathers because they are cold, since they have lost their body fat from the starvation.

06. September 2014 Marnar Gaard was fishing with fishing line on Skálavíksgrynnuni, but he could barely get the fishing line down to the cods, because there were so many mackerel. The mackerels were full of sand eels, which can be seen in the pictures. It was the appropriate size for puffin chicks, but has come at least 2 month to late.

Read the very interesting article

Update: We did not believe our eyes when we 31.7.14 again visited Sandoy and again saw the swan with the broken wing. The police put a man in charge to deal with the matter three weeks earlier; but the task may have been too great?

On 25. June 2013 Poul Johannes Simonsen, his son Johannes, Kenneth Justesen and Jens-Kjeld Jensen were in 3 different "urð" – which is a great accumulations of rocks, that has fallen off a steep hillside - to count and ring young shags. There were few fledglings to see and only 4 young and 1 adult was ringed. As usual we also found four nests with eggs. The result looks better than last year, when almost none youngs were fledged.

A SAD WAY TO DIE

Unbelievable, but while Iceland is experiencing its worst economic crisis ever, the politicans nevertheless recognized the need to undertake some research to illustrate the situation with the Icelandic seabirds. They also found the money for it. The study resulted in that a protection proposal is presented in Altingið, which is the Icelandic parliament.

The Faroese politicians could certainly learn something from their Icelandic colleagues!

NEW INFORMATION ON THE ICELANDIC PUFFIN, THAT MOST LIKELY IS DOING BETTER THAN THE FAROESE ONE!

Studies from Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland shows that 15% of all Icelandic ringed puffins are reported back. The study also shows that as many as 30% of these ringed birds are old breeding birds and that almost everyone has been caught in a ketcher and then killed by the bird catcher (Erpur Snær Hansen pers communication).
Additional Helgason's studies from 2012 show, that the mortality rate among breeding puffins is 12.7% in the Vestmannaeyjar against 7% on Røst in Norway (see Tycho Anker-Nissen figure below).
The catastrophic decline has led to the Icelandic Parliament is currently dealing with a new law on the preservation of the puffins in the 5 next years.

References:  

Erpur Snær Hansen Ph.D. Sviðstjóri Vistfræðirannsókna / Director of Ecological Research. South Iceland Nature Centre. Strandvegur 50, IS-900 Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland

Hálfdán H. Helgason: 2012. Survival of Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica) in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland during different life stages. M.S. thesis, Líf og umhverfisvísindadeild, Verkfræði- og náttúruvísindasvið, Háskóli Íslands, Reykjavík, Ísland

Reed more about the suggested protection of the Icelandic puffin

DEAD SEABIRDS AND STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF AUKS

According Mardik Leopold a unusual high number of dead puffins, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars have driven ashore by the Netherlands in January 2012. All of the birds were completely starved and seems to have died of starvation. None of the dead puffins were ringed, so you can not say for sure where they came from. However, as seen in Fig. 1 a Faroese ringed puffin is earlier found dead in France, so there is every indication that at least some of the Faroese puffins are staying in the area of Holland in the winter.
This winther the Razorbills showed a very strange behaviour: they followed ships and were diving and presumably feeding in the wakes. We have seen ship-following Razorbills only very rarely in the SE North Sea. Now, thousands of birds must have been doing this, all at once, and over a very large area (thousands of km2).
We must hope that there are not too many Faroese puffins amongst these who died from hunger, as the annual "normal" rate of death then soon can reach 10-15%.

Fig.1. All foreign recoveries of puffins, ringed in the Faroes.

COMPLETE NUMBER OF DEAD PUFFINS, FOUND IN THE NETHERLANDS

Puffins stay out in the open sea in the winter, therefore very few are found dead on the beaches. It's like the Danes say - only the "tip of the iceberg" - that runs on land. But in January 2012 1 dead puffin was found for every 5 miles of beach in The Netherlands, where one usually "only" find 1 dead puffin for every 100 km, so here there has been significant changes.

Grannastevna: Is when the locals themselves adopt decisions that are final, if you do not follow them you can be prosecuted.

Hunting statistics for the Puffin

See the exceptional and unique photos and read more here

2011 seems to become the 7 year in a row with no food for the Faroese Puffin. Many Puffins were on land around 28. and 29. April but since then they have been gone, despite the Puffin normally lays their egg 20. May. 28. May large shoals of mackerels were in the fjord of Nólsoy. The plant plankton came to late and in very small amount, so there is no food for the small sand eel's.

The Puffins, Arctic Tern and Arctic Skua are likely facing starvation again in 2011.

See the very interesting photographs from their visit

Hunting statistics for the Puffin

2010 – YET ANOTHER YEAR OF DISASTER FOR THE FAROESE PUFFIN

Updated 04.08.2010
The Kittiwakes only had some few fledged young’s in 2010. The big question is, whether these young’s will manage through their first winter, since they are in a poor condition.
Karsten Larsen counted the young’s in a small colony in Mykines and the result was <0,15 young’s in each nest. In Viðoy there were <0,20 young’s in each nest.
Some of the lower nests in Mykines were washed away because of a sudden storm for a couple of days this summer; but that had no effect of the bad outcome.

Updated 12.08.2010
In Iceland they also believe, that the mackerel is eating all the food from the seabirds – read the interesting article

Arctic tern chicks on Nólsoy and Kittiwake chicks on Mykines started to die from starvation on 20 July 2009. These seabirds seemed to have a successful breeding season in 2009, with plenty of sand eels late in June and during the first 14 days of July. Each time they returned from fishing, adult terns were bringing 2-4 sand eels to their chicks. However, there was a sudden change on 23 July, when parents spent more time at sea and only brought back a single sand eel to their chicks each time. As a result, Arctic tern and Kittiwake chicks have died in great numbers.

In only one night, that between 23 and 24 July, 231 Arctic tern chicks died in the Nólsoy colony! Then, on the night between 24 and 25 July, 270 Arctic tern chicks died at the same place.

Today, 25 July, we observed Arctic terns feeding their chicks again on Nólsoy. The wind has changed to South and that might make it easier for them to catch sand eels. There are still approx. 100 live chicks in the Nólsoy colony. Today, I have been talking to people from all over the Faroe Islands and most of them said that the situation is the same all over.  However, a few said that the situation looks fine with very few dead chicks.

The Arctic terns on Nólsoy seem to have a very fine breeding season in 2009. There are several hundred breeding pairs just North of the village, and many of the chicks are half-grown now, in mid July. The parents bring sand eels to their chicks continuously, carrying as many as four in the beak, when they return from fishing.

The fulmar in the Faroes has decreased a lot during the last 20 years, so the number of young ones has equally decreased with app. 50 %. This means, that the number of caught young fulmars is getting lower and lower each year.