Chukotka: Part 2: Fauna on Kolyuchin Island

Our Beautiful World

Chukotka

Part 2: Kolyuchin Island and Tsjuktsjer Peninsula

Animals, birds and flowers on this page:

BIRDS	ANIMALS	FLOWERS
Baird's sandpipers, Calidris bairdii	Arctic fox, Vulpes lagopus	Cotton grass, Eriophorum
Glaucous gull, Larus hyperboreus
Pelagic cormorant, Phalacrocorax pelagicus,
Thick-billed murres, Uria lomvia
Horned puffins, Fratercula corniculata

From a rearranged translation of Vladimir Dinets original pages to norwegian, with supplements.

Klikk på flagg for norsk versjon

1	Chukotka - overview
2	Kolyuchin-Island and Tsjuktsjer-Peninsula
3	Coastal spits I
4	Coastal spits II
5	Lowland-tundra I
6	Lowland-tundra II
7	Mountains I
8	Mountains II
9	South of Chukota - Kamchatka, Ussiraland
10	Northern Pacific and East Siberian Sea

The Chukchi Peninsula has a lot of small offshore islands. Many of them are very beautiful, and have huge seabird colonies
and walrus rookeries. A good example is Kolyuchin Island off the northern coast. Its name comes from Chukchi word
keglyuchin, which means an old, mean-spirited male walrus.

Aerial view of Kolyuchin Island.

Seabird flocks over Kolyuchin Island.

Summer midnight, Kolyuchin Island.

The island, located just a few miles offshore, has no human residents. There are only ruins of a Soviet research station, and a cabin used by native hunters from a nearby village


Cotton grass, Eriophorum, summit plateau of Kolyuchin Island.


Except for the southern cape, the island is surrounded by rocky cliffs and steep talus slopes, leading to the summit plateau. The plateau is a sea of broken rock with a few beautiful meadows

Nesting seabirds, Kolyuchin Island.

Glaucous gull, Kolyuchin Island.

Ten species of seabirds nest in huge colonies on Kolyuchin. Other resident species include rare gyrfalcons,
Falco rusticolus and Baird's sandpipers, Calidris bairdii

Baird's sandpipers, Calidris bairdii
Photo: Arthur Grosset

Baird's Sandpipers breeds on the arctic tundra in Northern America and in the far away areas of Eastern Siberia.
In July it starts on its journey back to South America, and spends the northern winter in western and southern parts
of South America. Then it returns to north again in March.

Glaucous gull, Larus hyperboreus

Glaucous gull, Larus hyperboreus, Kolyuchin Is.

Glaucous gull chick,
Schmidt Cape, Chukotka.

Glaucous gull, Kolyuchin Island

Glaucous gulls, Kolyuchin Island.	Glaucous gulls, Kolyuchin Island.
Glaucous gull is called "burgmeister" (city governor) in Russian, because other seabirds pay it "taxes" with their eggs and chicks. It is the most carnivorous seabird of the High Arctic. It nests in its own colonies, or around large colonies of other seabirds.