Here is the second in our series of Station Spotlights, where we share unique and interesting stations and users throughout the world.
One of the first things I found in my search was that we have a number of stations in Canada, Alaska, and Scandinavia at very high latitudes; very far north in other words. I was immediately interested in these stations as winter this far north can be quite formidable and because the seasonal length of day/night changes dramatically at more extreme latitudes. As some of you may know, there is a latitude above which during summer the Sun never fully sets, and in winter the Sun never fully rises. This is known as the Arctic Circle, and occurs at roughly 66.5 deg North. I was ecstatic to learn that we had two stations within the Arctic Circle, both in Norway. A PUC (#2321) at 67.3 deg North online since December 2023 and a BirdNET-Pi (#199) at 69.6 deg North online since May 2022.
In these following graphs, you can see (via timeanddate.com) the length of the day in Summer is 24/7, the endless day. And below those, you can see the location of these two northern stations on the BirdWeather map.
I reached out to both station owners, who graciously both allowed me to interview them for this article and use their photos. I was curious to hear about their experiences birdwatching and experiencing nature that far north; how the intense snow and length of day/night might impact both birdwatching and operation of electronic devices like the PUC/BirdNET-Pi.
Station #2321 -- PUC-2321 Bodø, Norway
First, we go to PUC (#2321), operated by Pål A. Olsvik from Bodø municipality, Norway. Thank you to Pål for taking the time to answer my questions and providing such amazing photos!
Jamie: How long have you been birdwatching and interested in birds? What do you like about it? What relationship do you have with it (amateur birdwatcher, professional researcher, professional photographer, etc.)?
Pål: I have actively been birdwatching only for the last three years. But I have always been interested in wildlife and especially with wildlife photography. When traveling (especially abroad), I always take photos of birds and other wildlife and then try to ID unknown species when returning home. You can see some of these photos on my old-fashioned home page (www.olsvik.info).
My interest in birdwatching started with photography. Then I became more interested in finding new or rare species. I still always bring a camera, but these days I am happy just to see a bird. Of course, to find rare birds is still one of the main reasons to go birdwatching, and to get photos of them is a bonus.
I am an amateur birdwatcher and still a fresh one. I have a master degree in marine biology and a PhD in ecotoxicology, so I am a biologist by profession.
Jamie: How did you discover BirdWeather and PUC/BirdNET-Pi/acoustic monitoring websites? Were there any unique challenges in order to set up this technology where you are located (precipitation, temperature, shipping equipment to you, internet/power connectivity/etc.)?
Pål: I was told about the BirdWeather PUC by a colleague at the university, and decided to purchase one and try it out. I have been using the Merlin App for a few years, as I am still bad at recognizing bird sounds, so the plan is to using it to improve my knowledge of vocalizations. Yes, my BirdWeather PUC did work with batteries for only a few minutes before going offline. It was quite cold when I started using it (0-10°C), so it could partly be related to outside temperature. I then contacted BirdWeather Support, and they recommended me to power it by a USB-C charger permanently. I therefore hang it outside my window at home. It still went offline 2-4 times every 24 hour (usually for about one hour each time). I purchased a new charger, and now it stays online most of the time. So the use is limited to my home. My plan was originally to bring it with me when going birdwatching and use it as a supplement to the Merlin App.
Jamie: The arctic circle is such a unique part of Earth due to the periods of year where the sun never sets and periods where it never rises. A lot of people in more temperate climates find this to be remarkable and find it hard to comprehend what living in an area like that must be like. What has your experience of this unique phenomenon been and what are some ways this phenomenon and other phenomena of the region impact birdwatching?
Pål: I live in Bodø municipality in Northern Norway. It is north of the Arctic Circle, but the climate is not true Arctic due to the Gulf Stream. The winters can be quite long and windy here. For example, last winter started with very cold temperatures already in early October and the greening of the vegetation started in early May. This means that birdwatching in November-February you only have a few hours of light and you have to spend your time wisely. But birding in late winter can be rewarding with migrating Arctic species like the King Eider and northern gulls. Winter is also a good time to search for owls like the Great Grey Owl, Northern Hawk-owl and the Pygmy Owl. In summer, of course, you can be out birdwatching 24 hours if you want. Like elsewhere, spring and autumn migration time are best for birdwatching.
Station #199 -- BirdNET-Pi - Kattfjord, Norway
And now we move on to the second station in our spotlight, BirdNET-Pi (#199) operated by Robin Rist Kildal from Kattfjord, Norway. Thank you to Robin for taking the time to answer my questions and providing such amazing photos!
Jamie: How long have you been birdwatching and interested in birds? What do you like about it? What relationship do you have with it (amateur birdwatcher, professional researcher, professional photographer, etc.)?
Robin: I have never been much of a bird watcher, but after moving to a very rural area outside Tromsø (called Kattfjord, directly translated "cat fjord") almost ten years ago I have been feeding and listening to birds a lot.
Jamie: How did you discover BirdWeather and PUC/BirdNET-Pi/acoustic monitoring websites? Were there any unique challenges in order to set up this technology where you are located (precipitation, temperature, shipping equipment to you, internet/power connectivity/etc.)?
Robin: I read an article about BirdNET-Pi somewhere, and figured it might be some good use for one of my unused raspberries, and after getting it up and running, and getting lists of what birds where around, my interest in birdwatching has increased a lot.
At first I just put the whole thing on a covered terrace with a usb microphone, but that did not give great results. I also tried streaming the audio from a couple of cameras to it, but being a raspberry pi 3, it often crashed. After a while I followed some advice and got a relatively cheap lapel microphone with a usb adapter to reduce noise, and hung the microphone out of an air vent on the back of the house. The pi stays inside, and has good connection to both power and wired internet.
Jamie: The arctic circle is such a unique part of Earth due to the periods of year where the sun never sets and periods where it never rises. A lot of people in more temperate climates find this to be remarkable and find it hard to comprehend what living in an area like that must be like. What has your experience of this unique phenomenon been and what are some ways this phenomenon and other phenomena of the region impact birdwatching?
Robin: Living in the arctic has some effect on the birdlife. During the long winter I have almost no bird detections, and it mostly starts up again during late winter (April-May here) when we start feeding the local birds. During the summer, with the midnight sun going 24/7 we do get a lot of birds all day round. I havent looked at the big picture data to see when we have the most, but June was a really busy month.
Thanks again to both Robin and Pål for their help with this project.
And now I will turn to a bit of analysis on the BirdWeather site to see some of these trends visualized.
Here are some graphs depicting number of birds (and per hours of the day) for a few different species.
BirdNET-Pi #199
Summer:
And for station #2321 we only have spring/summer data, as winter audio data is very limited during this time.
Spring:
And so, to explain some of these results, for the Summer plots I have chosen the month of July 2024 and am viewing statistics for all birds detected by the station during that time. For Spring I chose May and for Winter I chose December. You can see a very stark contrast in Station 199 between winter and summer, with summer bringing 3205 Eurasian Magpie calls in a month compared to 467 in winter. And this is only one of two prominent species in December, the other being the Willow Tit. All others are below 100 counts. And for all detections across all birds, in July we see 38626 detections compared to 953 in December. A big difference!
And though we don’t have statistics for station 2321 in December, I would expect the difference to be comparably stark in contrast.
You can also see the hours of the day the birds visit these stations directly corroborates the experiential findings of the station owners, the birds only come at a thin sliver of day during winter, versus in summer they come by all day (and "night") long.
So we can see that indeed climate and latitude make a tremendous difference on the birdwatching experience. I find it fascinating to see these observations by Robin and Pål, as well as my assumptions about Northern climates, reflected in the data on the platform.
It would be wonderful in the future to have more stations in the Arctic and even some in the Antarctic circle would be wonderful as well, to have a more comprehensive view of birdwatching at polar latitudes. If any researchers in these regions (i.e. Svalbard/Antarctic research stations) come across this article, we would love to have you!
Other extreme climates (Sahara Desert, high altitude mountains) are some other topics that would be wonderful for a future post.
Thanks for reading everyone! And feel free to email me at jamie@birdweather.com if you have a unique station location/use case that you think would make for an interesting article.
