Filling the Blank Spots: Diversity and Abundance of Birds of Vize Island, Northeast Kara Sea

A bird checklist of the Vize Island, the Kara Sea, is presented for the first time. Eight species are confirmed to breed: the Red-throated Diver (Gavia stellata), Common Eider (Somateria molissima), Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritima), Black-legged Kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus), Ivory Gull (Pagophila eburnea), Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea) and Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), while the Brent Goose (Branta bernicla) is not. Three skua species (Stercorarius pomarinus, S. parasiticus, S. parasiticus) are common on migrayion. The true seabirds such as the Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), the Brunnich’s Guillemot (Uria lomvia), the Little Auk (Alle alle) and the Guillemot (Cepphus grylle) regularly use the sea the adjacent offshore areas areas when feeding and migrating; migrating Red Phalaropes (Phalaropus fulicarius) and Heuglin’s Gulls (Larus heuglini) visit the island only occasionally. Roughly 30% of the total bird list are vagrants including the Long-tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis), the Ruddy Turnstone (Arenaria interpres), the Rough-legged Buzzard (Buteo lagopus), the Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus), the Eastern Yellow Wagtail (Motacilla tschutschensis), the Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica), the Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) and the Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) with most of them recorded during the extremely warm 2020 season. A combination environmental features such as the high-latitude location with a severe maritime Arctic climate, small area remoteness and isolation of the island, monotony of natural landscapes with an extremely low diversity of breeding habitats and shelters, an exceptional scarcity of terrestrial plant and animal food resources altogether account for the low diversity of the breeding bird species on Vize Island. With the exception of the Snow Bunting and the Purple Sandpiper, all local birds depend on marine food resources. Anthropogenically modified habitats at the abandoned human settlement compensate for the absence or deficit of suitable natural breeding habitats and shelters on the island, thus supporting a local bird hotspot.