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An evening with thousands of gulls in Hamningberg

12. August 2024

This summer I met a large flock of gulls (mainly herring gulls and great black-backed gulls) on the beach in Hamningberg, where they blend in perfectly with their moon-like surroundings.

It was incredible to sit and observe this man wild seabirds in their natural element, and it left me wondering how many gulls we saw that night exactly. So when I came home, I went through my pictures and counted.

Species

This summer, in June, we spent a night in Hamningberg, a small village at the end of the road along the coast of Varanger.

Hamningberg is maybe best known for the otherworldly landscapes and the scenic road leading to the town, and it has an interesting history as well, being one of the only towns not burned down by the Germans during the Second World War.

But what fascinated me the most this trip, and what made our evening there a highlight of our summer, was the the incredibly high amount of gulls hunting and roosting along the shoreline.

Zoomed in picture of a rocky beach with mountains on either side, and thousands of herring gulls and great black-backed gulls (mostly juveniles/below 4yo) all over the beach, showing up as little white dots against the gray rocks.

Zoomed in picture of a large flock of herring gulls (mostly juveniles, and some adilts) standing on top of a rocky landscape with moss and grass growing between the rocks. There's white poop on the rocks, letting the gulls blend in perfectly.

We were lucky, because there was a lot of whale activity in the area while we were visiting. And where there are whales there’s fish, which means the gulls follow as well.

Very large group of gulls flying over the blue ocean, with mountains and clouds in the background, on a very sunny day.

I had read a lot about a rich bird life in the area, but we visited Hamningberg a few times before and could honestly not remember seeing that many birds there the preview years, so the show we got this year was a welcome surprise.

A huge flock of herring gulls flying off simultaneously, on a very rocky landscape by tghe beach, photographed from above.

During our evening walk, we followed the perletur hiking trail up to Hardbaken, where we were greeted with the sight of hundreds, (or thousands?), of herring gulls and great black-backed gulls roosting along the rocky hills and beach, while other flocks of gulls were still following the whales at sea for a late night snack.

We were already impressed by the amount of gulls sitting on the side of the rocks and in the grass, and were completely blown away when we noticed an additional sea of gulls gathered on the stone beach, blending in perfectly with their environment.

Near-adult great black-backed gull standing on a rocky coastline, blending in well with its environment. The GBBG is a large gull, with pink feet and black wings, and this indivisual still has some white/brown juvenile feathers left on the wings.

Herring gull in flight, with a rocky shoreline as the backdrop. The herring gull is not fully adult yet and still has some brown and white spotted feathers on the wings, along with the gray adult feathers.

It left us wondering: how many gulls were we actually looking at?

So I took a “wide” angle picture (35mm) of the view from the spot where we were sitting, opened it in photoshop, and started counting.

Wide picture of a rocky beach with mountains on either side, and thousands of herring gulls and great black-backed gulls (mostly juveniles/below 4yo) all over the beach, showing up as little white dots against the gray rocks.

I used the brush tool with a bright red color, zooming into the picture and putting a dot on each gull I spotted. I started in a new transparent layer above the picture, and continued on a new layer after every 50 dots placed. Then at the end, I counted the amount of layers and multiplied them by 50 to know the total amount of gulls in the picture.

wide angle picture of a rocky coastline with thousands of herring gulls on them, a small red dot is placed on each of the gulls

Nearly 2000 gulls on this picture

And I counted… 1707 gulls on the wide angle picture, and an additional 183 on the picture that’s zoomed in on one of the rocks by the water, bringing it to a total of 1890 gulls that are identifiable in these two pictures.

I also compared an area of the wide angle picture above to a zoomed in picture of the same area (the grass and the beach below), and ended up counting more or less the same amount of gulls, although there are still dots left of which I'm unsure whether they're a gull or just discolored rock.

I’m sure there was a substantial amount more than 1890 on this patch of beach. I didn’t take zoomed in pictures of all the rocks in the distance, and the wide angle picture is just too zoomed out to be able to reliably count them, so I didn’t.

My guess is there are around 2000 in the wide picture including those that were too far away to count, potentially closer to 2500 or even 3000 if all the white dots around the lighthouse area are birds too (I think it’s just discoloured from droppings, from what I remember).

A lot more gulls in Hamningberg

There were also a lot more gulls overnighting in the area than displayed in this picture. The beach stretches on like this both on the left and right, and it seemed like gulls were overnighting all along the coastline. Additionally, large groups of gulls kept following the whales at sea as well.

If the area in the wide angle picture has nearly 2000 gulls on them, then I think the total amount of gulls we saw that night must have been at least 10,000.

Lighthouse stnanding on gray rocks by the coast, with a large group of herring gulls flying around it.

Gray rocks with white poop on them, by the ocean which is lid orange by the evening light. The rocks are covered with herring gulls, which blend in perfectly with their gray and white colors.

Seeing so many wild and strong gulls in their natural environment was an incredible experience, and one I want to come back for. Looking forward to my next trip to Hamningberg. 🥰

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