Hjelmsoya

Hjelmsøya (71.113°N x 24.732°E) is a 39 km² mountainous island in Måsøy Municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. It lies west of the islands of Måsøya and Magerøya, north of Havøya and the mainland.

There are two large nature reserves on the island: Hjelmsøystauren (4.4 km²), a large bird cliff in Staurfjellet on the northernmost part of the island, and Hjelmsøysandfjorden (1.3km²) a plant and seabird nature reserve with sand dunes surrounded by steeply sloped mountains.

The Hjelmsøya razorbill population is estimated to be 4000-5000 pairs but other breeding populations include arctic skua, great skua, common gulls, great black backed gulls, herring gulls, common eiders, greylag geese and black guillemots. White-tailed eagles are commonly observed on the island and regularly feed in the seabird colonies.

Most of the seabird species breed in the Hjelmsøystauren nature reserve. Hjelmsøya holds the second largest Brünnich’s guillemot colony in Norwegian territory, 12 – 14 000 pairs, despite having been reduced from 120 000 pairs in the 1970’s. Up to 2000 pairs of Brünnich’s guillemot used to breed on the island in the early 90’s, but the colony has diminished and now few birds visit the colony without producing eggs or chicks. The breeding population of kittiwakes has been severely reduced as well, from its peak of 40 000 breeding pairs to approximately 1200 pairs in the year 2016. Now the most numerous species is the atlantic puffin which population has been estimated to exceed 80 000 pairs breeding at Staurfjellet.

Seabird monitoring was initiated on Hjelmsøya in 1984 and today around 20 seabird species are regularly monitored. Most of these breed in Staurfjellet but European shags are monitored on a nearby island Lille-Karmøy, great cormorants in a larger area in western Finnmark and Atlantic puffins on the Gjesværstappan islands. Hjelmsøya became a SEATRACK locality in 2014 but kittiwakes were instrumented there as early as 2008 and guillemots in 2011.