Winters are harsh on Svalbard, with temperatures falling to as low as -20 °C, with very limited food sources. Summer, on the other hand, however brief, is a peak time in terms of the quantity and quality of resources.
How to take advantage of summer abundance while avoiding the harsh Arctic winter? By the miracle of migration!

In the northern hemisphere, migratory birds travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres.
They fly mainly south to north in summer, in search of the best environmental conditions and habitats for breeding and raising their young.
They then move north to south to overwinter in a more favourable climate, offering better availability of food sources.

Not much larger than a robin, the ruddy turnstone (Arenaria interpres) undertakes long migrations.
After overwintering on the coast of West Africa, it flies to nesting grounds in Europe’s northernmost latitudes, from Iceland to Norway, and right up to Svalbard.

To cover this long migration route, the ruddy turnstone can adapt to very different climate conditions, from harsh Arctic temperatures, even in the summer, to the warm tropics.

The Svalbard rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta hyperborea) is one of the several subspecies of rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) and is the only land bird that lives on the Svalbard Archipelago all year round. 

The plumage of this likeable bird changes with the seasons, allowing it to blend in perfectly with its surroundings. Its winter plumage is completely white, except for the feathers on the tip of the tail of the male.

Not many species nest on Svalbard, but their numbers can be impressive, especially where seabirds and geese are concerned.
Nests are built in a number of environments, for example on steep scree slopes and sheer cliffs, inaccessible enough to offer the birds protection from predatory foxes. However, nests are also found on the bare rock, in the region’s low and sparse vegetation, or on sandy beaches. 

Some Svalbard species nest alone while others do so in colonies. Such colonies can be large and numerous or small with few birds, or made up of a variety of species. They offer several advantages, when it comes to guarding the nest.

The presence of a group is an essential factor for identifying predators, allowing parents to count on their ‘neighbours’ to help them escape. Species that nest alone, on the other hand, must rely on their aggressivity and on the camouflage of the nest, the eggs or their young, that makes them blend in with their surroundings.

Many of the species nesting on the Svalbard archipelago are monogamous, in other words they mate as stable and lasting pairs, in some cases for a single summer, and in others for their whole lifespans, meeting up again each season.
Monogamous pairs share all responsibilities: guarding the nest, incubation and feeding of nestlings.

Monogamy in an environment that is harsh but rich in resources has a range of benefits, allowing the relevant species to make the most of what is on offer, thus ensuring a high level of reproductive success.  

Barnacle geese build their nests high up on the sheer cliff faces. The nests are thus out of reach of predators, but the grasslands where the birds go to forage are a distance away and only reachable by flying down from the steep rock walls. The geese do not return to the nest with food. Goslings must therefore learn to launch themselves from the nest very soon after hatching to follow their parents to the feeding areas. 

This means they have to plummet from a considerable height before they have even learned to fly. However, thanks to their lightness and perfect weight distribution, they manage amazingly to reduce their speed as they drop, allowing them to land successfully at the foot of the cliff.

The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) is a typical Arctic seabird that usually nests in underground burrows that are anything from 70 cm to over a metre deep. The birds use old rabbit burrows or can dig their own with their claws, although not on Svalbard. 

When they arrive at the archipelago, at the start of May or a little later, the soil is still frozen and too hard to allow tunnelling.
Nesting puffins have therefore adapted to build their nests inside hollows and crevices in the rocks, forming large colonies on the cliffs that are safe from mammalian predators, foxes in particular.

The purple sandpiper (Calidris maritima) nests in lone pairs in areas of dry tundra. It is the most abundant shorebird on Svalbard: some studies estimate numbers at over one pair per square kilometre during the breeding season!

The nest is built on a mat of dry moss and lichens to form a cup-shape, finely lined with willow leaves and more lichens. The laid eggs are so similar in colour to the materials used to build the nest that they blend in with them perfectly.

On Svalbard, life on sea and land is closely linked and seabirds play a central role in this interconnection. Seabirds play an especially important part in the nutrients cycle, setting up veritable nutrient hotspots in the areas surrounding their colonies. 

The many birds feeding in the sea’s various pelagic zones release considerable amounts of guano around their breeding sites on dry land.
This guano acts as a powerful fertiliser in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems.

The polar bear is without doubt the monarch of the Arctic. Under normal circumstances, these large predators rely on ice floes to hunt seals, their most common prey. However, recent studies unfortunately show that the powerful impact of climate change on the presence of sea ice is altering their feeding patterns.

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Arjen Drost | Rights reserved

For example, in recent decades the bears have been increasingly present at the breeding sites of various bird species, in particular barnacle geese. Here they can plunder a colony for highly nutritious eggs, thus severely impacting its ability to reproduce, since a single bear can eat over a thousand eggs on one such raid.

On Svalbard, the Arctic fox ranks as a super-predator with necrophagous habits and no natural enemies or competitors. During the summer, Arctic foxes often frequent the cliffs that serve as bird nesting sites, where they find abundant food sources such as eggs and the chicks of various seabirds, including geese. 

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Silvia Giamberini | Rights reserved

Arctic fox, Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard)

In particular, they are known to wait along the shore at the foot of cliffs for barnacle goslings to drop from their nests. They will then snap up as many chicks as possible to build up reserves for times of scarcity.

Individual great skuas adopt very different foraging strategies. They feed on fish but are also skilled kleptoparasites, relieving other birds of their prey by bossily overpowering them in mid-flight.
In the breeding season they will also prey on other birds, including large species such as the European herring gull. 

Obviously, this strategy extends not only to adults but also to eggs and chicks, which are removed from their nests after the adults have been driven off by violent assaults.
On Svalbard, great skuas are true super-predators, the adult birds fearing no threat whatsoever.

Glaucous gulls are the largest members of the gull family found on Svalbard. They are omnivores that prey on fish, molluscs, crustaceans, but also on other seabirds and their eggs and chicks. They can easily capture guillemots in flight, as well as their chicks taking to the air for the first time. 

Glaucous gulls nest around cliffs close to seabird colonies, becoming skilful predators and carrying out veritable raids for eggs, chicks and adults. They have also been observed following foxes or even humans as they approach the colonies, in the hope that these intruders will frightened other birds off and leave their nests unguarded.

The climate changes currently occurring are much more evident and pronounced in Arctic latitudes. They can be seen not just in ever higher air and sea temperatures, but also in altering precipitation patterns, variations in plant communities, rising sea levels and shrinking ice floes.

Wintertime brings ever more frequent instances of ‘rain on snow’, which has severe repercussions on herbivorous species, such as the snow partridge or the Svalbard reindeer: rain falling on snow creates a hard layer of ice, blocking access to the few but essential resources buried under the snow.

Once a hunting ground for trappers and whalers, the Svalbard archipelago boasts 29 protected areas, including no less than 16 bird reserves. Of these, 10 are inside national parks, while five are also Ramsar sites protected under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, the first intergovernmental treaty designed to manage sites of this nature. In the 15 bird reserves, for the whole breeding period (15 May to 15 August), all traffic is prohibited within 300 metres of the coasts of the islands and access on foot is limited to marked paths, to avoid treading on the nests of species nesting in the tundra.

Despite a short growing season, sparse vegetation and low temperatures, summertime is very lively on Svalbard. There may not be a huge range of avian species, but numbers are impressive, resulting in intense bird activity at sea, on the cliffs and in the tundra. The silence normally enveloping the archipelago throughout the winter gives way everywhere to birdsong.