Birds Of The Faroe Islands
In the Faroe Islands there are currently about 110 different species of birds although, including vagrants during the last 150 years, over 260 species have been recorded. There are about 40 common breeding birds, including the seabirds Fulmar (600.000 pairs), Puffin (550.000 pairs), Storm Petrel (250.000 pairs), Black-legged Kittiwake (230.000 pairs), Guillemot (175.000 pairs), Manx Shearwater (25.000 pairs).
Symbolically, the most important of the birds of the Faroe Islands is the Eurasian Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus). Their annual arrival on about 12 March is celebrated by the Faroese people as the start of spring. For this reason, the Tjaldur (pronounced ), is recognised as the national bird of the Faroes. However, in numbers, the avifauna is dominated by an estimated two million pairs of breeding seabirds of several species. There are also some resident landbirds and many regular visitors, both passage migrants and breeders, as well as several species recorded occasionally as vagrants, mainly from Europe. The Faroese postal system, the Postverk Føroya, prints stamps portraying Faroe birds. See external links.
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“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 6:25.26.
Jesus.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What are the islands to me
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