Thurs­day was the lon­gest day in the nor­t­hern hemi­sphe­re. This time it was the 20th of June and not the 21st becau­se 2024 is a leap year. It varies any­way, in “nor­mal” years it is some­ti­mes also the 22nd or the 23rd of June, depen­ding on the details of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Any­way – 24th of June is Sankt Hans, and the night befo­re is Sankt­han­saf­ten (St. Hans’s evening), an event duly cele­bra­ted with huge bon­fi­res and a drink or two.

Com­mon eider duck on her nest at the dogyard in Advent­da­len.

Now the sum­mer is here in full bloom. Com­mon eider ducks and geese are busy bree­ding in their colo­nies in lar­ge num­bers, and you can see the first chicks making their first steps in the tun­dra.

It is sum­mer when the cham­pa­gne glass breaks

It is “offi­ci­al­ly” sum­mer in Lon­gye­ar­by­en when the stem of the cham­pa­gne glass is bro­ken. The “cham­pa­gne glass” is a huge snow field with cor­re­spon­ding shape on Ope­raf­jel­let, eight kilo­me­t­res due east and easi­ly seen from Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

The “cham­pa­gne glass”, a snow field on Ope­raf­jel­let, on Sun­day (16th June) …

With pro­gres­sing snow melt, the stem will break and the food is then sepa­ra­te from the cup, and once that has hap­pen­ed it is sum­mer. That’s how they do it here. It is a popu­lar sport to pre­dict the date of this important event, which this year hap­pen­ed last Tues­day, which is quite ear­ly. In other years this hap­pen­ed in late July, depen­ding on the amount of snow and the timing of the snow mel­ting peri­od.

… and on Fri­day (21st of June).

Mes­sen­gers of spring this year less abun­dant: decli­ne of snow bun­tings

Many peo­p­le in Lon­gye­ar­by­en had the impres­si­on that the num­bers of snow bun­tings were lower this year than usu­al. The snow bun­ting is Spitsbergen’s only sin­ging bird. It comes around mid April and the beau­tiful voice of the male brings plea­su­re to all who have just had half a year of win­ter.

The impres­si­on that num­bers were and are lower this year were now con­firm­ed by sci­en­tists from NINA (Nor­we­gi­an Insti­tu­te for natu­re rese­arch), as Sval­bard­pos­ten wro­te. The sci­en­tists main­tain a long-term popu­la­ti­on moni­to­ring pro­ject which now com­pri­ses 27 years. The pro­ject includes moni­to­ring 100 nes­t­ing boxes in Advent­da­len. Usual­ly, bet­ween 40 and 60 nests are found in the­se boxes (in all of them tog­e­ther, not in every sin­gle box 😅). This year, howe­ver, the total num­ber was nine.

Snow bun­ting in Advent­da­len in ear­ly June: this year in lower num­bers.

The exact reasons are unclear, but just for a chan­ge, cli­ma­te chan­ge is not among­st the pri­ma­ry suspects. Neither the con­di­ti­ons in the bree­ding are­as in Spits­ber­gen. One theo­ry is that a part of the popu­la­ti­on fell vic­tim to extre­me storms in the Barents Sea during the autumn migra­ti­on. The­re were hea­vy storms in the Nova­ya Zem­lya area last Octo­ber, which fits regar­ding space and time. The bird flue and unu­su­al cold tem­pe­ra­tures in the win­tering are­as, the regi­on around the bor­der bet­ween Rus­sia and Kazakh­stan may also have play­ed a role.

A rare extre­me event of this kind lea­ves at least space for hope that the popu­la­ti­on may reco­ver in years to come.

An evening in Advent­da­len in June can be a litt­le jour­ney to para­di­se, espe­ci­al­ly for tho­se inte­res­ted in birds. Start at the com­mon eider colo­ny at the dogyard near Lon­gye­ar­by­en (an easy walk in town and loca­ted in the area that is gene­ral­ly con­side­red polar­bear-safe, cer­tain­ly at the time of year when the ducks are bree­ding the­re). Just sit down some­whe­re and spend a litt­le while quiet­ly and you will see what I mean.

The cur­rent impres­si­on on the wide tun­dra are­as near­by and a bit fur­ther into Advent­da­len is a slight­ly dif­fe­rent one. It is just an impres­si­on, total­ly sel­ec­ti­ve in space and time, but the impres­si­on is that the­re are far fewer geese gra­zing now on the tun­dra in lower Advent­da­len than the­re used to be in pre­vious years.

A com­pa­ri­son. The first pic­tu­re is from July 2022 …

Geese in Advent­da­len, 2022.

… and the second pic­tu­re was taken on Mon­day (10 June 2024).

Geese (or not) in Advent­da­len, June 2024.

Was it the bird flu?

The loca­ti­on of both pho­tos is not exact­ly the same (the­re is a few kilo­me­t­res bet­ween them, but both places used to have ple­nty of geese in the past), June is not July and 2024 is obvious­ly not 2022. So, just to make it clear again – it is just an impres­si­on. No data, no sci­ence. But I found the impres­si­on quite strong and it is that the­re are fewer geese around. May­be they alre­a­dy went for other are­as in the spring of 2024? The­re was litt­le snow in May, that might be a dif­fe­rence. Or was it the bird (avi­an) flu? This dise­a­se may have play­ed a role, as it is repor­ted to have kil­led about 1/3 of the Sval­bard popu­la­ti­on of Bar­na­cle geese, amoun­ting to 13,200 birds as Scotland’s Natu­re Agen­cy im wro­te in Okto­ber 2023. A stag­ge­ring num­ber.

Many spe­ci­es of smal­ler birds

But a clo­ser look reve­als a lot of life, espe­ci­al­ly among­st smal­ler birds, as the fol­lo­wing litt­le sel­ec­tion of pho­tos may show.

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

First row, left: leu­ci­stic Bar­na­cle geese are regu­lar­ly seen, alt­hough very low in num­bers. Midd­le: dun­lin. Right: Red throa­ted diver
Second row, left to right: Eura­si­an teal, reck-necked phalar­ope, snow bun­ting.

The­re were also some king eiders, but we saw them “only” in flight that time.

Espe­ci­al­ly Eura­si­an teal and reck-necked phalar­ope are among­st spe­ci­es that are not seen every day and ever­y­whe­re in Spits­ber­gen. Lower Advent­da­len has an impres­si­ve ran­ge of spe­ci­es, well worth a visit for bird lovers, and natu­re lovers in gene­ral.