Loppa

Loppa (70.358°N x 21.398°E) is an island in northwestern Finnmark county, in northern Norway. The island is 7,4 km long, 2,5 km wide and the highest peak, Rektind rises 274 m above sea level.This island provides a wide variety of habitats for breeding birds, from sheer cliffs at the western side, rocky shores at the northern and eastern side, and sand-dunes in the southern part.

Earlier the lowlands were farmland but are nowadays abandoned and grade into birch forest up to 100 m altitude, above which the vegetation is limited to ground-level flora.

In the steep cliffs of the western part of the islands several thousand puffins and razorbills breed as well as few hundred pairs of common guillemots. Further inland great skuas, arctic skuas common gulls, great black-backed gulls, herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls breed.

Two subspecies of lesser black-backed gulls Larus fuscus intermedius and Larus fuscus fuscus can be found breeding there. In good years the Lesser Black-backed Gull colony, that is mostly situated in two subcolonies, one at Matmorstuva and one at Svarthellaren, can total up to 80 pairs. A large part of the island is a nature reserve.

This site was part of the project during phase I and II.