Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2004, Síða 245

EIN SØGULIG LÝSING AV BÚSETINGINI HJÁ GRÁSPURVANUM í FØROYUM
OG STØÐU HANSARA í DAG
243
island reliable historical data on first ap-
pearances are almost completely lacking,
though at Runavrk, which nowadays is part
of an almost continuous habitation along the
eastern side of Skálafjørður, the house spar-
rows have been present at least since 1959
(anon., pers.comm.). Many of the other set-
tlements on Eysturoy are known to have
had breeding house spairows in 1981, and
it is most likely that a number of these sites
were colonized much earlier than that. For
some settlements with small house sparrow
colonies, repeated extinctions and recoloni-
zations are known to have occurred.
The northern islands
Among the northern islands, characterised
by high mountains and narrow sounds and
fjords, Svínoy (27.3 km2) was the first to
become colonized. It was in c. 1944 when a
small colony (about a dozen pairs in 1946)
was established (Petersen, 1949). In the
wake of the harsh winter of 1946/47 the
population was down to a few pairs, but
it soon recovered and has for many years
maintained a level of about 12-25 breeding
pairs (Pelersen, 1949; Williamson, 1954;
Potts, 1961; Joensen, 1966; Grand, 1966;
present study).
In Klaksvík, the largest settlement on
Borðoy (94.5 km2), house sparrows start-
ed to appear at about the same time as on
Svínoy, bul in 1953 it was slill considered
an irregular visitor and not until about 1960
was it reported as being common (Petersen,
1949; Williamson, 1954; Potts, 1961;
Joensen, 1966). At the other few and small
settlements on Borðoy the house sparrow
has been an irregular breeder in small num-
bers, e.g. at Árnafjørður, Norðdepli, and the
nowadays no longer inhabited Múli.
On Kalsoy (30.6 km2) the settlements
Húsar, Mikladalur, and Trøllanes are all
claimed to have been colonized in the early
1950s (Jákup Jacobsen and Líggjas Eliasen,
pers.comm.), though only in Mikladalur has
breeding occurred without interruptions. In
Syðradalur, at the southern end of the is-
land, the house sparrow is a regular visitor
(more so some 15 years ago than today) but
no breeding has been confirmed (Asbjørn
Lómklett, pers.comm.).
For the island Kunoy (35.3 km2), the set-
tlement with the same name has had breed-
ing house sparrows for more than 20 years
but no detailed information is available.
There are no records of house sparrow for
Haraldssund.
At Viðareiði, on Viðoy (40.6 km2), the
house sparrow appeared for the first time in
c. 1962 (Nils Jákup Absalonsen according
to Jensen and Kampp, 1997).
Fugloy (11.0 km2), just north of Svínoy,
was not colonized until in the mid-1960s;
first at Kirkja (Laura Lydersen, pers.
comm.) and a few years later at Hattarvík
(Zacharias Zachariassen, pers.comm.). The
occurrence on Fugloy has been irregular
with extinctions and recolonizations.
Overall view
As seen above, for several of the larger
islands and for the Faroes as a whole, the
colonization by the house sparrow followed
a rather irregular pattern in time and space
(Fig. 1). It seems to have started in more
than one place (see Discussion) at about the
same time in the early 1940s, which obvi-