Lilla Karlsö, Naturreservat

You might think that Lilla Karlsö is just a smaller version of the neighboring island Stora Karlsö, but this is not the case at all. As on Storön, there are high cliffs with thousands of nesting auks, but the island has its own character, is perceived as more barren and has almost no buildings.

Lilla Karlsö is an island with bird mountains and sheep-grazed limestone heaths. The island has an area of about 1.5 square kilometers and consists of an almost circular plateau, which is slightly arched and reaches a maximum height of 66 meters above sea level. To the north and south, the plateau is surrounded by low plains, and to the east and west it is bounded by steep cliffs. The northern plain is a raucous landscape, while the southern plain is flat and covered by a series of embankments created when the sea level was higher than it is today.

Sheep have grazed on Lilla Karlsö for thousands of years, and the island has a distinctive grazing landscape. Areas with relatively thick, rich soil cover alternate with alvar-like rocky areas. Old, coarse and gnarled deciduous trees such as ash, elm, oak, finnoxel and oxel grow in the southern ravines. The sheep that now graze on the island are of the Gutefår breed, where both rams and ewes have horns.

The intensive sheep grazing has given the vegetation a heathy character,

dominated by narrow-leaved grasses such as sheep's fescue, with a significant amount of rice. More than 360 species of vascular plants have been found on the island. Characteristic species include lesser celandine, lesser celandine, wild larkspur, tulkwort, sundew, lesser celandine, lesser celandine, creeping thyme, spearmint and creeping thistle. There are also several unusual plants on the island, such as deer's tongue, heart thistle, Gotland nun's wort, clove, wreath borer, blue-flowered make-up root, nettle, honey flower and carnation lettuce.

More than 70 species of birds nest on the island. Thousands of guillemots, razorbills and cormorants live on the slopes of Öster- and Västerberget. Other common breeding birds are the black-headed gull, oystercatcher, herring gull, herring gull, common tern and little tern. Eider nests all over the island, and in the cliffs, blackbirds, great and lesser black-backed gulls, and mallards. A colony of black-headed gulls breeds in the marshes, as well as several species of ducks, including shoveler and gadwall. The beaches are home to waders such as oystercatchers, redshanks, oystercatchers, lapwings and curlews. Lapwing nests in unusually large numbers for Gotland conditions. House martins and swifts nest in the cliffs. Wood pigeons live in the old hollow trees.

Gray seals regularly stay on the island's shores. There are about a hundred snakes on the island. These are characterized by a strongly varying coloring, and many are completely black. The snakes feed mainly on fish.

There have probably never been permanent residents on Lilla Karlsö. Instead, the island has been used seasonally for fishing, seal hunting and sheep grazing. There are several graves on the island from the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Middle Ages. On Norderslätt there are several foundations of boathouses from the 18th century.