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' Great Auk Stack '), [2] or Freykja (), [citation needed] is a small, uninhabited island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. [1] [2] Geirfuglasker is located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) off Iceland's southwestern coast. [1] [2] The island hosted one of the last known colony of great auks, which thrived given its inaccessibility to humans.
18th-century sketch of Geirfuglasker Former location of Geirfuglasker among the Fuglasker islands. Geirfuglasker (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈceirˌfʏklaˌscɛːr̥] ⓘ, "Great Auk Rock") was a small islet near Reykjanes, Iceland. It was volcanic rock with steep sides except for two landing places.
On the North American side, eider down initially was preferred, but once the eiders were nearly driven to extinction in the 1770s, down collectors switched to the great auk at the same time that hunting for food, fishing bait, and oil decreased. [50] [19]: 329 The great auk had disappeared from Funk Island by 1800.
Mounted great auk, Natural History Museum, London. On Stac an Armin, in July, 1840, the last great auk (Pinguinus impennis) seen in Britain [17] was caught and killed. A then 75-year-old inhabitant of St Kilda told Henry Evans, a frequent visitor to the archipelago, that he and his father-in-law with another man had caught a "garefowl ...
Eldey, and the fate of the great auk, are mentioned in The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby by Charles Kingsley. Eldey is described in detail in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. The Great Auk, a novel by Allan W. Eckert, c. 1963, Library of Congress Cat.#63-18215
During summer, great auk plumage showed a white patch over each eye. During winter, the great auk lost these patches, instead developing a white band stretching between the eyes. The wings were only 15 cm (6 in) long, rendering the bird flightless. Instead, the great auk was a powerful swimmer, a trait that it used in hunting.
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It was one of the last places where the great auk was found; the last individual was killed in 1813. The reserve is also home to the rare and tiny purple-flowered Scottish primrose Primula scotica . The sea around most of the island is a Nature Conservation Marine Protection Area , in place to protect the feeding grounds of the island ...