Bird cliff web camera - the Hornøya Kittiwakes

Love is in the air - and we are filming it!

Last year we had a web camera mounted on Hornøya bird cliff giving close up views of the Puffins on the cliff. Thanks to funding from Rob Barrett of Tromsø University Museum, we now have the opportunity to mount another bird cliff web camera. This time we will have a closer look at the life of the Kittiwakes on Hornøya.  

Hornøya is an amazing place: it is the home of 100 000 seabirds, and it is only a 10 minute boat drive from Vardø island. It hosts a wide varitey of bird seabird species. It is this spectacle we aim to bring closer to the people of Vardø and the rest of the world. This time we have also expanded the project to inlculde high quality microphones, because the sound of the cliff is just as spectacular as the views.  

Below follows a few images from the trip we just did to the cliff to mount this new web camera, in proper arctic weather. We are just getting into the mode of making a few Iphone video productions: fast and easy. Hopefully you will enjoy getting a glimpse of just another day at the office!

The Kittiwakes have just settled in the bird cliff.   

Our new web camera is fixed at section of the Kittiwake colony. This time with high quality sound too. 

Hornøya is one of Varangers finest bird sites. A true spectacle! This photo was taken from the boat to Hornøya.

The fixers and doers, the Iphone-movie:

The web camera project on Hornøya is spearheaded by Biotope and Cloudware - a mix of nature knowledge and computer knowledge. We have developed a web camera set up, that provides high quality and a very decent price. We handle everything from the mounting to the online presentation and  operation systems. In short: we have made a system of quality components to easily stream the bird life from cliff to the people. A few photos below from our recent trip to Hornøya. Grand thanks to fisherman Ole Klaudiussen in Vardø, who brought us safely to and from Vardø on a windy march day. 

The team at the bird cliff: Eivind Bøhn and Reidar Øksnevad from Cloudware, Tormod Amundsen and Alonza Garbett from the Biotope office and Ole with his very cool sailing / fishing vessel.

Arctic style! Hornøya March 10th, 2013.

Rob Barrett of Tromsø University Museum have been researching seabirds on Hornøya bird cliff for more then 30 years! In Vardø he is known as Mr. Hornøya - with good reason. No one has spent more time on this magnificent place then Rob. I can highly recommend checking out the seabird booklet written by him and several of his collegues. This is everything you need to know about seabirds of the north, and then some. A great publication. Knowing that this new web camera will let scientists monitor the bird life on Hornøya even closer is great. Rob and Tromsø University Museum have financed all the hardware for this project. This project is both public awareness and science combined!

The birds of Hornøya

The variety of bird species on Hornøya is great. The high arctic  alcid species Brünnichs Guillemot is one of the birds that many visiting birders want to see (sitting left in image).

With the amount of birds present on Hornøya Gyrfalcons, Ravens and White-tailed Eagles make a daily drama at cliff. This photo is from the most read article on the Biotope website: Gyrfalcon versus Raven. Cool scenes from a spectacular place.

The Puffins may be cute, but they are also fierce fighters! Check more photos in the story about the previous Hornøya web camera, with a Puffin fight club series.

With such wide variety of spectacular birds and stunning landscape Hornøya has become a favourite location to visit for birders and photographers from all over the world. We are very happy to have this place so close to our office! It makes livving in the arctic a greater experience. Now with the new web camera we can share it with the world too. We hope you will enjoy it!

We will launch the new Kittiwake web camera on Gullfest 2013, in a weeks time. 

Stay tuned for a spectacle, and the new web cam launch on www.birdwatch.tv

Tormod A. / Biotope

Life and death at the bird cliff

Section of the steep Hornøya bird cliff (iphone photo). Vardø town in the background.

Hornøya bird cliff must be the densest inhabitet place in Eastern Finnmark. It is a truly magnificent place. Approx 100 000 seabirds come together - some for safety in numbers, others for the numbers of easily available prey. I visit Hornøya several times a month, from mid March to mid August and I have never returned dissapointed. Very often I guide a tour group, journalists, friends or I go for some other bird project reason. Getting the latest info from the summer resident scientists is allways great or like on my last visit: testing the new soon-to-hit-the-market Swarovski telecope. Still, finding time to simply sit down and marvel at the spectacle is important. This is understanding a place by experiencing it with all senses.

July is a month with less birders in Varanger, and less visitors on Hornøya. At the same time late July is the time for the seabird chicks to fledge their nests. A critical time in their life. I feel priviliged to experience this. Last sunday (22.07) I sat quietly by the shore on Hornøya, admiring the entire scene: Noisy, smelly and filled with bird life: young Guillemot chicks where falling-flying from the cliffs, calling at their parents that lay on the sea, with little else to do then see if their young can make it to the sea.  Now imagine life being all about one small spot on the edge of a cliff for a month as a young chick, then one jump later and the world becomes the grandest place full of new challenges - and dangers. 

Young Guillemot: the big jump. Talk about nerve! 

The sea getting closer and closer for every free fall and crash landing.

The Great Black-backed Gulls guard the last piece of sloping land between the cliff and the sea. Finding a clever path past them is a huge challenge. Some make it to the relative safety of their parents on the sea, others simply become food for hungry predators.

One more jump and the steepest part of the cliff is overcome. 

 A brief moment of hesitating - then its all in - again.

Finally - the safety of the high plants / scurvygrass (skjørbuksurt). Surely a new and strange environment for a cliff dweller. Allways on the alert.

The first adventure is not over - only meters left to the sea.

But the predator gulls on hornøya are experienced. One wrong move is all it takes..

Flight of the Brünnichs Guillemot

This sunday I had been fortunate enough to borrow Jörg Kretzchmars brand new Swarovski ATX/STX telescope. He had a pre-release telescope for testing and digiscoping. I was sitting by the sea enjoying some extraordinarily great views of Guillemots through this excellent birders tool. Luckily with my other birder essential next to me - my Nikon d300 with the 300mm lens. The next half second gave me a glimpse of what must be one of the biggest jumps performed by a Guillemot chick that day. The Brünnichs Guillemot breed on the steepest parts of the bird cliff, and it seems their approach, at least in this case, is one single semi-controlled jump from cliff to sea. The bird family seemed to fall as a single unit, hitting the sea surface almost simultaneously. The photos I got is of the very first resurfacing after a less then elegant landing. Yet impressive - something similar to a wingsuit base jump. Except without any training whatsoever. What a first flight performance!

Brünnichs Guillemot (polarlomvi / Uria Aalge) pair with chick, split second after first landing

Shaking of the water

I guess some comfort is welcomed after such an experience...

Lesson one: jump far! Lesson two: stay close!

More stories from Arctic Norway to come. For the keen reader of bird cliff stories: I experienced another drama earlier this spring with a Gyrfalcon and a Raven (see: https://www.biotope.cloud/2012/04/gyrfalcon-vs-raven-hornya-photo.html )

Thanks for tuning in to the Biotope website! To be continued...

Tormod A. / Biotope

Gullfest 2012 - Arctic birding adventures, the movies

Gullfest 2012 provided some exellent birding experiences. We travelled the taiga, tundra and arctic coast by dog sled, snowmobile. RIB, car and by foot in search for the most exclusive birds. The Gullfest program was tailored to see great birds, huge numbers of birds and birds that usually require local knowledge to find. Great company and great and varied birding made the first ever Gullfest a bird festival to remember!

Tengmalm´s Owl Aegolius funereus Vestre Jakobselv, Varanger. Photo by Vincent Van der Spek.

A section of the Hornøya bird cliff. Varangers densest inhabitet place.

Snow Bunting Plectrophenax nivalis The issue of the eastern siberian (possible) subspecies P. n. vlasowae is absolutely worth a closer look. We saw hundreds of Snow buntings almost all with dark rump / back, but we had a very few individuals of the eastern type with very little black on the back / mantle (bird to the right, and even less dark on mantle in some). Not much info to be found on this complex, and more knowledge is higly wanted. So - nothing settled for now- but anyone with more resources on Snow Bunting subspecies is very welcome to share. Let us know...

Pine Grosbeak Pinicola enucleator (male / female) in Pasvik - the parrots of the northern taiga. 

The Northern / Arctic type of Fulmar - seen on the Gullfest2012 Blue Fulmar Pelagics . Photo by Jesús Menendez (more at: Demencia Ornitologica)


Gullfest Arctic birding adventures - the movies 
(huge thanks to Kevin By for recording + editing)

Hornøya bird cliff - a seabird spectacle, only 10 min from Vardø, and the Gullfest base camp, by boat.

The Blue Fulmar Pelagic - searching for the fulmars of the high north (more info on this can be found on Martin Garners Blue Fulmar blog post from Varanger 2010.

Snowmobile birding in Vestre Jakobselv

Great birding, great company

Taiga birding transport. Nils Van Duivendijk, Sharon Garner & Martin Garner + the Birkshusky dogs.

The spanish group on the Hornøya bird cliff boat, here in Vardø harbour - thanks guys for joining, and thanks Jesús for Fulmar photos.

Snowmobile birding in Vestre Jakobselv. A great day with Tengmalm´s Owl, Hawk Owl, Siberian Tit, Arctic Redpoll and more. 

Several of the birders getting a lifer - first time ever views of Tengmalm´s Owl. 

 Tengmalm´s Owl - a trip highlight for many...

We are getting lots positive feedback from Gullfest participants - very encouraging! Thanks all for kind words and constructive feedback, and thank you all very much for joining and making this a very memorable event! 

We are on for Gullfest 2013! 
Dates are set to be one week earlier: in Vardo 5-8th of April + taiga prologue + tundra epilogue. One week earlier means more King Eiders (in 1000s, not "just" 100s as in Gullfest2012) also better chances of aurora borealis. More info later - stay tuned.

Tormod A. / Biotope

Gyrfalcon vs Raven - Hornøya photo workshop, part 2

Gyrfalcon Falco rusticolus (Gyr vs Raven photos follows below)

The Hornøya bird hide / wind shelter - a good base camp on windy days in the Arctic

The Hornøya 2012 bird photo workshop is just finished, and it has been a week with lots of good company and fantastic nature experiences! For my part it has been days of travelling back and forth to Vardø to run our architectural office, and making more things happen in Varanger, while at the same time

GULLFEST - the Arctic birding highlight of 2012

In collaboration with Martin Garner of Birding Frontiers we have put together a new birding event: the Arctic GullFest! 

Everyone who ever thought of visiting Varanger - this is a very good opportunity to do so! There is a lot happening in the arctic north. There is much talk of the North East Passage opening new global possibilities in trade, oil- and  gas explorations / exploitations - We aim to put birds and nature on the map. Varanger has for a long time been a well known birding destination, and for good reasons: This is where the Gulf stream meets the climate of the arctic. Seas are kept open and the shallow Varanger fjord is facing east and is therefore protected by heavy waves caused by typically heavy westerly winds, on top of this (and because of) is one of the richest fishing fields of Norway. All this combined makes ground for spectacular birdlife. We want to promote and protect this as best we can, and make these natural qualities count when the future of the arctic north is being decided. 

At the same time we want to make this a great experience as possible, for those who are engaged in birds and nature. The first Arctic Gullfest is from 13 - 17th of April 2012 and you are invited to join us for this very exiting birding event! 

GULLFEST PROGRAM / ABOUT : 

This will be five days of great birding experiences, inspiring and educational talks and slide shows.

We invite you to come to the town of Vardø, one of the most bird rich places in the famous birding destination of Varanger Fjord. 

The bird cliff web camera story

-Adventures in destination development

For us as architects destination development is more then just building. It is very much about beiing involved all the way. The hornøya wind shelter (below) and bird hide has been in place for a year. It has sheltered both visiting birders and locals, and it has survived the test of heavy arctic storms. We are now working on a scheme to further develop Hornøya as a fantastic bird and birding place. This includes improving the nature trail / path, improving the lighthouse accomodation fascilities and making new and better information folders for the nature reserve. In addition we are now setting up a wireless bird cliff web camera.

Birding to the wwworld! 

We have spent quite some time finding the funding for this project, and in collaboration with Eivind Bøhn from Cloudware(moment.team) we have researched and developed a high speed wireless web cam solution.

Hornøya bird cliff has for more then 30 years been a reseachers heaven. The very close proximity to Vardø, with all necesarry amenities and infrastructure, and the easily accesible birdcliff with a wide variety of species, is the key. The result of these studies can be found in many publications. Our aim for this web cam project is to give everyone the possibility to tune in to the Hornøya bird cliff, and perhaps follow the birds trough a whole breeding season. From the birds arrive in mid march in snowy blizzards to when they leave in early August.

 Incoming Puffins, fratercula arctica