June 19 and 20 – Ferry Ride to Nólsoy/Storm Petrels

After breakfast we headed out to the car to load up…and found that we had a parking ticket.  Supposedly the first 2 hours (9:00 – 11:00am) are free but neither the hotel staff nor the rental company told us that we needed to go out at 9:00 am and reset our little meter in the car to 9:00.  Sigh!  Minor details.

We walked down to the ferry with our one overnight bag and caught the ferry for the island of Nólsoy, just a 20 minute ferry ride and easily visible from Tórshavn. 

Upon arrival there was a very large line of small children boarding the ferry.  Apparently they had been over to Nólsoy for a field trip and were heading back home.

The harbor area was very picturesque 

 

We found the tourist information center were we had lunch (only item on the menu was nettle quiche, very tasty).  Then we had a two hour walking tour of the very small town.

There were a number of children having a grand time playing in the shallow water in the bay.  Burrrrrrrr!.

including a visit to the very small museum.  The museum is an old traditional house.  The oldest parts of the home date from the late 17^th century and was built entirely of driftwood as the Faroes do not have much in the way of trees.  There were a lot of old artifacts...

including puffin wings that were used as dusters. 

We also got to see inside the church.  We have found that most of the churches are locked.  This is because in recent years they started having thefts so all churches are now kept locked. 

One really unique feature was the white arch down by the harbor. It is, in fact, the jaw bone of a blue whale. It is huge!!

We then settled into our guest house with nice views of the island and town. Late evening 

at 9:45pm we and one other person in the guest house were picked up by our local guide and his son for our walk out to the cliffs to see the storm petrels.  

The bay was beautiful in the twilight.

The storm petrels are very small birds and fall prey to larger gulls and other sea birds.  Therefore, they only come out to feed in the middle of the night.

Nolsoy has probably the largest colony of storm petrels in the world. Depending you the source they estimate there are between 50,000 and 200,000 nesting pairs. 

The walk was beautiful and a bit rugged as we were hiking over rocky terrain.  

We arrived at our “viewing” site about 11:30 and the guide and his son started stringing up a wide and tall (~ 20’ by 8’).  Apparently we aren’t going to watch for petrels but were going to capture some.  They would have a ring attached to their leg and they would be weighed and their wing measured. And then of course they are released.  

We captured 15 birds that night, about 6 or 7 already had rings.  Taking them out of the net was a delicate operation.

Attaching the rings was also a very delicate operation.  Their legs are really tiny.

For those that were already tagged, we recorded the existing wing number and they were also weighed and their wings measured.  

To weight the birds they were placed in a bag and the bag placed in a small tray and they were weight on a balance that the guide had brought.

Mary helped by writing down the information in the notebook the guide had.  It was really exciting to watch and help with the work. We even got to hold a few and release them.   The data is to be sent to a research center in Denmark.

We didn’t get back to the hotel until about 3:30am.  It was an awesome experience.  It was a good thing they were netting the birds because we would never have seen any of the birds otherwise.  They are mostly black, fly very low to the ground and are very fast.  We never did see any flying, except for after we released them.

We slept in until about 10:00, had a very late breakfast and then relaxed at the guest house until it was time to leave for the ferry back to Tórshavn.