Svalbard: The villain of the piece

Every good story needs a villain, and filling this less than desirable role in the Svalbard story, is the glaucus gull. On several occasions, I witnessed these large birds preying on some of the smaller birds that headed (very far) north to breed in the arctic summer.

The eider ducks were the main target during most of my sightings.  The brave ducks did their best to fight back, and for a while it seemed to work, but eventually, the patience, wise and guile of the bigger bird prevailed, and the ducks lost a chick.  There is no rest however, no matter how high you are up on the food chain, especially when the rest of your species thinks the same way you do.  Once the chick had been caught, it hadn’t even been swallowed yet (amazingly hole, and in one quick gulp), and the nearest of the gulls’ colleagues was onto him, challenging for the remains of the little chick.  During one attack on the slightly defenceless ducks, a gull made a cool approach to some nesting ducks, and swooped in to try grabbing a chick, but missed and got a beak-full of the treasured down feather that have made eider ducks so famous.  It spat the feathers out with a look of disgust, and flew off to try a different group of nesting females.

Things don’t always go the way of the gulls though – a very brave, and very irritating arctic tern was able to encourage the gull to move on. It was a matter of minutes however, before a second gull was onto the tern’s nesting site, and the performance started again.  All of this provided some incredible photographic opportunities!

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Svalbard: 100% character

There is so much natural beauty on the island archipelago of Svalbard that there was bound to be one species that dropped the ball, so to speak.  There is no denying that the mighty walrus is not an outright looker, but what they lack in aesthetics, they make up for with loads of character.

Naively, before seeing my first walrus, I thought of them as a juicy prey item for the largest predator on earth – the polar bear.  Split seconds after seeing my first walrus, I realized just how wrong I was!  It was never in doubt that they were big creatures, but I was really surprised by just how big they actually are.  The average size of a male is around one thousand two hundred and fifty kilograms (about two thousand seven hundred and sixty pounds), and the average length is just over three meters (ten feet).  Those nifty stats simply mean that if they are bothered by a polar bear, or anything else for that matter, they don’t actually have to do anything, they just stand together and hold their ground.  We did actually see some interaction between a polar bear and a herd of female walruses, which came to naught as soon as the wary mothers had (rather roughly) escorted their young to the safety of the water.

We had a number of good encounters with walrus on the safari, each one leading to some pretty decent photo opportunities.  Getting up close to the walrus was not a challenge.  The first encounter we had, they came up to us (wildlife photography made easy).  We were still sorting out cameras and approaches on the beach when a couple of the bigger lads came to see what we were all about.  The way they pop their heads up out of the water and inspect you is very cool, even gentlemanly.  Once they were comfortable with us, they stopped the bobbing up and down, and just had a good look.  It was a great opportunity to get some detail-revealing portraits.  On our second encounter, we crept slowly and quietly up to a large herd of mature males that were sleeping on the beach.  They were sleeping with conviction, so it was not difficult to get within fifteen meters.  The sounds emanating from the herd combined with the sheer volume of snot and drool didn’t help their case, but what fantastic animals!  A true surprise.  I had gone to Svalbard sure the polar bear was easily the ‘trophy’ species, but the all-out character of the walruses won the group of us over.  It was great getting the chance to study these massive, blubber rich beauties (beauties used loosely there), and take some pretty (pretty used loosely there) great images.

 

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Svalbard: Arctic cuteness

One of the species I was really hoping to see on this safari was the arctic fox.  I have been to the arctic twice before, but these little beauties have eluded me on both occasions.  I figured that at this time of year they would not be wearing their (more well known) all white uniform, but would be in what is known as the blue phase, or their summer outfit, which would give me a better chance to spot one (the white fur on white snow makes spotting them in winter a tricky business). 

 

We checked a few areas where the foxes are seen regularly, but to no avail.  It seemed that this was going to be a species that would laugh at me from its secret hiding spot for a third consecutive visit to the cold north, until the second last day.  At around four thirty in the morning (remember the midnight sun – we started out at one thirty) we found our first fox – an extremely nervous individual that ran like an arctic blizzard, giving us only a quick look at over one hundred meters.  Not great, but it counted (I did manage to grab a photograph of the fox, but even with all the equipment in the world, let’s be fair, it was a long, long way away).  It put a smile on my face and a tick on my list, but being a photographer, I (as always) hoped for a second opportunity.

 

After a solid midday sleep, we set out again on a final attempt to find some foxes, and boy did we strike gold!  Twenty minutes into the search, we had a quick glimpse of a fox on a small ledge above us.  We slowly followed, and had been led to a den site.  The female fox had moved up over some rocks, and while we were scanning the area, three small balls of fluff started rolling around in the afternoon sun.  Fantastic!  I could hardly believe our luck, but left the disbelief for later, because I was concentrating through twelve frames per second.  The three little foxes were an estimated twenty days old, which is just old enough to be ignorantly playful, but young enough to be absolutely cute.  We were lucky enough to spend close to three hours with the little foxes, and got the images I was hoping to get.

 

To join me on safari, click here!

 

 

Svalbard: Unbelievable scenes

I recently spent 10 awesome days on a photographic safari in Svalbard; the land of the midnight sun (well, this time of year anyway; there are also 4 months where it is the land of complete darkness).  There was so much to see and do, so many spectacular scenes, that I have decided to break up my arctic tales into a number of separate blogs.  The first of these adventures was an incredible trip to a bird cliff.

This was not just any bird cliff, this would be more accurately described as ‘the’ bird cliff – sixty thousand pairs of breeding Brunnich’s Guillemots!  For those of you who struggle with math, that is one hundred and twenty thousand birds (these are only the breeding birds, not any other hanging around) on one cliff face!  It truly is a feast for the senses.

Photographing them from the bow of our ship proved to be interesting…  The hardest part was without a doubt, trying to single out a single scene or bird to aim at.  There is so much commotion both on the cliff face, and flying around you, that it is very tricky trying to pick up the rhythm.   After I had closed my gob-smacked jaw, I did work out the general comings and goings of the birds, and managed to get some great images.  The rocking of the boat did not help either, for two reasons.  Firstly, because it makes aiming the camera very difficult, and secondly, because it does not allow you to use a tripod, so for the duration of the three hour continuous shoot, you are holding your (at this stage very heavy) camera, which will test even the buffest biceps!

At a number of points throughout the experience, I found myself standing back just looking up at that impressive cliff, trying to comprehend everything in front of me.  Even harder was thinking how on earth do I explain this to people who have never seen it – I surely would not have believed it if someone had try to describe it to me.  The only sure fire way to fully understand this marvelous phenomenon, is to head up to the arctic, and see it for yourself!

 

To join me on safari, click here!