Gulling Ilulissat

Thule Airport closes at 1530, local time. Due to time difference and sheer distance it is not possible for us to go all the way from Akureyri to Thule in one day. Therefore we have a stopover in Ilulissat - the tourist capitol of Greenland. Ilulissat is a nice place with a high standard of life - you should go there once in life, at least! Regarding wild life there is not that much to see but that's how it is all over Greenland.

If you go in April/May there are Bowhead Whales south of Disko - a species still recovering from the excess hunting several hundred years ago but they are almost guaranteed even though you might have to use all your savings to get there (much easier in a Twin-Otter;-)) The summer will have good numbers of Humpback Whales all over the Disko Bay and with the Icefjord as a backdrop it simply does not get any more beautiful. Hornemanni Arctic Redpolls are common in winter, spring and aumtumn but leave the town during the breeding season (the same for white Gyr Falcons).

27/8 1. cal Glaucous Gull in Ilulissat (Bird 1). Young glaucous are often very approachable in the harbor where they are taking the leftovers from the local fishermen.




27/8 1. cal Glaucous Gull, Ilulissat (Bird 2).



27/8 1. cal Glaucous Gull in Ilulissat (Bird 3).

27/8 The fresh water reservoir in Ilulissat often has a lot of roosting gulls. Often one can find the highest numbers of Iceland Gulls here, all though they sometimes use the cliffs on the northern side of the harbor. Notice the Black-headed Gull in the left corner of the picture, my first in Greenland!

27/8 Black-headed Gull. Not quite like Aarhus Harbor..

27/8 Hopefully the worst picture of Black-headed Gull you will ever see on this blog!

27/8 Black-headed Gulls can be seen all along the western coast of Greenland getting more and more scarce/rare the further north you come.

RDN