Lyngoy

Lyngøy (60.668°N x 04.749°E) is an island in the north of Tysnes municipality in Hordaland. The 62-da island is in Bjørnafjorden about 2.5 km from land. The site was established as a nature reserve for seabirds in 1987.

In Lyngøy, bird life is dominated by herring and lesser black-backed gulls. In the monitoring period 2009-2017, the breeding population of the former has varied between 320 and 380 pairs. For lesser black-backed gulls, here the southern subspecies L. f. intermedius, the population has varied between 80 and 120 pairs. Figures from 1979 show that large gulls also dominated the island, but that the lesser black-backed gulls were then in the majority with 110-130 pairs (the population of herring gulls was estimated to be 60-95 pairs). Of other bird species, we find great black-backed gulls, common gulls, greylag geese, eiders, oystercatchers and red-breasted mergansers. Of passerines, the island has rock-, and meadow pipits and hooded crows.

Birds have been ringed on Lyngøy since the 1960s, but totalled only a few hundred during the first three decades. In the 1990s and 2000s, the effort was intensified, and >2000 chicks were ringed on the island. In total, 1502 herring gulls, 1286 lesser black-backed and 53 great black-backed gulls (all pulli) were ringed before ringing in SEAPOP was initiated in 2010.