Birds

A total of 38 carcases of skua gulls were found within a few hundred yards of Lake Vashka. Most of them were lodged in the cracks of the frost polygons where they had presumably been blown by wind. The reason for this surprising concentration of dead gulls, forty miles from the sea, in an area which can offer nothing in the way of food except by a long chance a wandering seal, is unknown.

Live skuas were found in the vicinities of Lakes Vashka and Vida. Five were noted this year and one during the ten-day visit to Lake Vida in 1958.

Their numbers must be far in excess of those actually reported; four out of the six birds were first noticed when, flying overhead, they cast their shadows on the people below.