Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2005, Side 57

GREAT NORTHERN DIVER (GAVIA IMMER) IN CIRCUMPOLAR FOLK ORNITHOLOGY 55
The common loon as modern native art in Canada (Photo: Ingvar Svanberg, 2005).
are killed by fishing traps and are other-
wise disturbed by human activities in and
around the lakes they inhabit (Richardson
et al., 2000: 19-20).
Winter visitor in north-western Europe
From a European perspective, the red-
throated diver (Gavia stellata) and the
black-throated diver (Gavia arctica) are
well-known in traditional folk knowledge
and have played an important role in local
lore and the economy (Tillhagen, 1978:
327-331; Eriksson, 2000: 5). The regular
breeding area of the great northern diver
includes only Iceland in Europe. Outside
Iceland, the great northern diver is a reg-
ular winter visitor in the Faroes, British
Isles and the coasts of northern and north-
western Norway (Timmermann, 1949:
407-408; Sørensen and Bloch, 1990:
65).
However, in those areas where the great
northern diver was a common guest dur-
ing winter and sometimes as non-breed-
ing summer visitor, the coast- and island-
dwellers were well acquainted with it.
Although it is a visitor to Russia as well,
especially the Commander Islands in the
east and Barents Sea and White Sea in the
west, it is obviously so non-regular or rare
that the locals do not have any name for it.
In modern Russian handbooks it is called
polyarnaya gagara (‘polar diver’), which
is an artificial fauna book name equiva-
lent to Danish and Swedish islom, German
Eistaucher or Finnish jáákuikka (Suolahti,
1909: 448; Il’icev and Flint, 1985: 235).
Since 1996 it has a clarifying prefix svart-
nábbad islom in Swedish to differ from
the white-billed species Gavia adamsii
(Tyrberg, 1996: 13).
Naming
To study traditional animal and plant folk