Bonden
When approaching Bonden from a distance, you won't see
much more than a remote, lonely rock far out at sea, decked with
a lighthouse on top, but otherwise completely barren. As you approach
the constant swarm of auks around the island becomes visible,
but only once you are just a few hundred metres away would you
see the vast numbers of birds circling the island. This close
contact with the razorbills auks (Alca torda),
which are clumsy in flight, is an incredible experience. They
appear to be heading straight for the boat on a collision course,
and then whiz by just a few metres away and continue their circuit
around the island.
Its wealth of birds is not the only thing that sets Bonden
apart from the other islands; it is also remote and solitary.
It sits far out at sea and has a completely different bedrock
than the rest of the Kvarken archipelago. Bonden is completely
red from the rapakivi granite, a type of rock typical for the
province of Ångermanland farther to the south. Most of the
island is bare cliff with plain slabs, crevasses and steep slopes,
but a low section in the middle of the island has a large boulder
field. The island offers many breeding grounds for the auks. The
parents feed fish to their young, who make their way to the water
on their own legs and then swim away from the island. Only when
they are far out at sea do they learn to fly.
Vegetation is extremely sparse but in the crevasses there
are stands of crowberry (Empetrum nigra),
goldmoss stonecrop (Sedum acre), sheep
sorrel (Rumex acetosella) and common
bent (Agrostis capillaris). The occasional
angelica (Angelica archangelica ssp. litoralis),
red currant (Ribe spicatum) and reed
canarygrass (Phalaris arundinacea) can
also be found. Small lone mountain ash can also be found growing
here and there at the edge of a cliff. People who come close to
Bonden are probably most interested in the birds. The island is
completely dominated by the razorbill auks and guillemot (Uria
aalge). About 2,900 pairs of razorbills breed, while 700
guillemots pairs breed here. The guillemots are at their northernmost
outpost in the Baltic Sea. A few hundred pairs of black guillemot
(Cepphus grylle) also breed here. Since
1994 cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo)
also breed on the island.
Historically, Bonden has had great significance for the
survival of coastal inhabitants in the form of egg gathering.
Linné described the razorbill colony during his Lapland
journey in the eighteenth century. The number of razorbills has
fluctuated sharply, from 5,000 pairs at the last turn of the century
to only about fifteen pairs in the early 1940s. Eggs were gathered
as late as the 1930s and this was also the most important reason
for declaring the area a protected refuge. In 1937 the island
was declared protected as a natural environment and was therefore
Västerbotten's first natural area. In 1977 the island became
a nature reserve, which means that it is forbidden to go ashore
between 15 April and 15 September; the island is also protected
from boat traffic within 200 metres from the shore. Precautions
and consideration should also be taken when boating in the waters
around the seal rocks Tuvan and Sydvästbrotten.
The only people who go ashore on Bonden are a group of
birdwatchers who in the end of July each year make a quick visit
to the island to place rings on the young of the razorbills and
the guillemots. The birdwatchers also must be careful with respect
to ticks. The birds are common carriers of ticks and Bonden is
usually considered to have the most ticks in Västerbotten.
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