Observation

5. April 2024

Go back to observations

Info

Visit to Hornøya in the afternoon, with thousands of seabirds.

Species

Location

Hornøya / Vardø, Norway

Date

5. April 2024

Portrait of a young european shag, looking directly at the camera. Its body feathers still have a brown-ish color, the patch on the chin is white, and the beak is yellow and black. Common murre flying from right to left of the frame, with a fish in its beak. In the backgrpound are 5 other murres flying in the opposite direction, left to right. It's a sunny day with blue skies. Group of around 20 common murres (black and white seabirds of the auk family) in flight, against a blue sky. Two razorbills, small in frame, sitting on a rock in the bottom right corner of the image. In the background, thousands of auks (murres, razorbills, and puffins) take flight. Black and white close-up of a shag preening its feathers, looking backwards touching feathers on the back. Two razorbills cuddling together in the snow, with a bright aqua sea in the background. The background is out of focus with a lot of bokeh, and the snow in the foreground creates a white haze. The razorbills are small black and white auks, and have a white vertical and horizontal line on their beak. Common murres flying from the right to the left of the frame, against a bright aqua light sky Razorbill sitting on a rock in front of a deep blue sea. The razorbill is a medium-small seabird of the auk family. Its belly is white, back and wings and head are black. They have a white vertical stripe on the beak and a white horizontal stripe right above the beak. Silhouette of a common murre, overlooking a clear blue sky, while standing on a rock. Two common murres in flight, photographed from right below them. The one on the right is flying lower, and is as a result bigger and out of focus. The one on the left is in focus, and the plumage of the underside of the body is well noticeable, with a black to white gradient. Two razorbills cuddling together in the snow, with a bright aqua sea in the background. The background is out of focus with a lot of bokeh, and the snow in the foreground creates a white haze. The razorbills are small black and white auks, and have a white vertical and horizontal line on their beak. Telezoom portrait of two common murres cuddling and preening eachother, with murres blurred out in the foreground and background

More info

This was my first visit to Hornøya. I wanted to visit for years, and despite having traveled to Finnmark/Varanger on several occasions before, this was the first time a visit worked out.

It was honestly almost overwhelming how many seabirds were present here. According to the website, there are around 100.000 seabirds, of which there are 7500 pairs of breeding Puffins, 500 pairs Thick-Billed Murres, 15.000 pairs Common Murres, 1300 pairs of Shags, 500 pairs of breeding Razorbills, along with breeding herring gulls and black-backed gulls. Other visitors include Black Guillemots, Glaucous Gulls, White-Tailed Eagles, Ravens, Fulmars, Skuas, and many more.

I mainly came for the murres, my favorite bird species, so I spent most of my time photographing them. But I absolutely fell in love with the shags during this visit as well.

Enjoy my work?

I'm selling my photographs as high-quality prints, notebooks, and mugs through my store. Bonus content and downloads are available for subscribers on ko-fi.