Norway / Svalbard – in the Realm of the Polar Bear (8th-21st July 2013) (2 Viewers)

[dandsblair]

We had wanted to see polar bears for many years but were torn between trying to see them in the wild of the Arctic, or just going to Churchill, Canada in October/November and almost certainly seeing them around the town while waiting for the pack ice to form.

I had always favoured seeing them swimming, hunting and acting in a natural way but Sarah after some pretty bad sea-sickness in Antartica and around New Zealand was reluctant to spend much time at sea which would usually be required for this approach. However at last years Birdfair we attended a talk where the cruise around Svalbard was presented and Sarah saw that it didn’t really require much time in open water and rough seas as most of the sailing was close to land, so she said “let’s do it”.

However even last August the Naturetrek trip we fancied had no decent cabins left, so we looked for a trip that tried to go around the archipelago on a smallish ship, as that we thought guaranteed getting into the pack ice and therefore offered a better chance of bears at work. So it was we booked with Gadventures (booking nearly a year in advance got us a 15% discount and a cabin upgrade (4th Deck and Picture window).

Agenda was

Fly from Manchester to Oslo with SAS on 8th July – 7 hours waiting time so some birding near Oslo airport. Then continue flight late evening to Longyearbyen.
Overnight at Radisson Blue Longyearbyen then day exploring Longyearbyen area
July 9th board MS Expedition 16.30
July 9th – 19th – circumnavigate Svalbard (depending on ice and weather) in an anticlockwise direction stopping at various wildlife and scenic spots
July 19th – morning in Longyearbyen for last bit of birding, then fly back to Oslo PM
July 19th-20th Oslo (staying at Comfort Inn Borsparken), day for birding / site seeing
21st July Fly back to Manchester with SAS

Day 1 – Arrival in Oslo airport just after mid day, luggage checked through to Longyearbyen (note - not all flights do this as you have to clear customs in Oslo if the Longyearbyen flight is touching down at Tromso). We asked the information desk whether there were any parks or wildlife areas within a 30 minute bus ride of the airport, we didn’t want to go into Oslo at this point . The helpful girl was able to tell us about an area at Moreppen which was surrounded by woods and fields. We then went to the public transport stand and found out the bus number and the stand to get there. We had 20 minutes until the bus was due so we bought some provisions and headed off.
At the bus stop we had our first birds Jackdaw, House Sparrow and Feral Piegeon.
The bus ride took us past lots of airport car parks and round the other side of the airport before heading north into the country side. There was lots of forest around the area so it looked hopeful. We were just off the bus, fortunately with our bins around our necks when two birds flew up from near the bins, they were Nutcrackers – I couldn’t believe that these birds which we had never seen before and which I believe are usual secretive were so openly viewed. We enjoyed them for a bit but without access to the camera etc which was still in the camera pack didn’t manage any photos – (do any locals know if these are usually found around here – or just failed breeders / youngsters on the move?).
We then looked around the area; some fields, benches in an open area (an old football field) and then some woods with tracks into and a path alongside the road in both directions. We sat down at the benches and could see a couple of Spotted Flycatchers, a Pied Wagtail, at least 10 Fieldfares, 2 yellowhammers and a blackbird, while we had lunch. After lunch we headed down the tracks into the woods, first up were some great tit, Willow Warbler, Garden Warbler and ChiffChaff, then Mistle Thrush, Redwing and more Fieldfare, then when I was trying to photograph a YellowHammer, Sarah spotted a Woodpecker which she said had some yellow on it (I only saw distant flight views), I assume it was Three-toed but we didn’t count it as Sarah wasn’t 100% and I didn’t really see anymore than a woodpecker shape (Does anyone know if Three Toed WPs are common 30-40KM north of Oslo?).

As the afternoon wore on we managed to add a nice Rosefinch, some Blue tits, a Buzzard, Chaffinch and a lovely male Bullfinch. Flying around the field were many Swallows and Swifts and finally a Kestrel.

After 18.00 buses back to the airport went from 2 an hour to hourly, so we headed back to the airport, with plenty of time to clear security, we need not have hurried as the flight was delayed an hour. So it was after mid-night when we arrived in Longyearbyen, but the sun was still shining.
We did get two birds on the trip to the hotel, Arctic Tern and Glaucous Gull.

 

[dandsblair]

Longyearbyen, Svalbard

We started our Arctic leg of the trip with a day exploring Longyearbyen, strolling along the main road and walking up past the reservoir and husky dog stations. There was also a very well appointed bird hide with some details of recent sightings on the harbour we visited

Longyearbyen was founded as a coal mining city by the American businessman JM Longyear Today the capital of Svalbard is a fairly vibrant community with most amenities of modern life, 2500 of the 3500 permanent population live here and it doesn’t look or feel like an unspoiled wilderness. But just outside of town civilization ends and we enter “Polar Bear Territory” (see the phot of the sign just before the reservoir) and strictly speaking you aren’t meant to walk any further without being armed or accompanied by an armed guide as bears do come into the vicinity

The bird life was pretty visible but variety was limited. First up were Arctic Terns, almost everywhere along the road and ready to attack if you strayed too far from the centre of the paved surface. Then we saw an Arctic Skua attacking some people on the right side of the road, closer inspection (though not too close) showed that there was actually a pair of birds with a single very downy chick.

Waders were on the pools by the side of the road, most were Purple Sandpipers with various rings,, but we did get a few Dunlin, a Pectoral Sandpiper and a Ringed Plover.
By the dog kennels were 100’s of common eider and around 60 Barnacle Geese, both with young. We did see some drake eiders but despite some sightings by others of King Eider we couldn’t get one on the first day, nor could we find a Red(grey) Phalarope or Ivory Gull despite both being seen in the area over the last few days. We did get a very smart male Long-tailed Duck and later a female albeit they were quite distant on the reservoir. Snow Bunting were

Glacous Gulls were common and when perched near the terns were under constant ariel bombardment.


At 16:00 it was time for us to get to the meeting point and at 16.15 it was time for us to make our way to the harbour to join our ship the MS Expedition. In all there were a 103 passengers roughly what we expected. We were welcomed aboard by the expedition staff members and a smiling hotel team, who helped us check-in and settle into our cabins Our bags were waiting for us at our doors and cabin stewards and stewardesses showed us the features of our cabins.

We then had a few minutes to explore the ship before gathering in the Discovery Lounge for a briefing followed by the mandatory lifeboat drill out on deck. At around 6 o’clock we set sail and before and after dinner we enjoyed the spectacular scenery of Isfjorden and the Fulmars mainly dark phase birds accompanying for what was to be pretty much the full trip

 

[dandsblair]

The First Polar Bear

A bright and sunny morning dawned as we cruised Hornsund, named by the English whaler Jonas Poole in 1610 after he was given a magnificent set of deer antlers. It enjoys some great scenery not least its many calving glacier fronts which seemed to be visible from all angles.

During a lecture on the wildlife of the area we had an announcement from the bridge that a bear had been sighted swimming in the water. The Lounge promptly emptied and everybody poured out on deck, fortunately we were on the 4th deck only a few steps from the lounge and the open deck so we were quickly on deck with camera and binoculars, some people on other decks just went out without there gear at first. The bear was just ahead of the ship about 150 yards away. We were able to see him swimming in the water for around 20 minutes before he reached land and he then covered a significant distance stopping on some nice snow and ice before re-entering the water. The onboard expert concluded it was a large male bear maybe as much as 1300 lbs. in weight, thirteen feet in length and maybe twelve or thirteen years old. It was clearly a very powerful animal and a great sighting for our very full first day. (see below a few photos of our first Polar Bear). This was a great relief as although sighting were a little distant in the sea and on land it was in the bag now and worries of spending 11 days of unsuccessfully bear searching were gone.
We had spoken to some people who had done the previous Expedition trip (7 nights only) and they had seen only one bear, so we had matched that.

In the afternoon it proved impossible to land in Hornsund due to the presence of a supply vessel for the Polish Research Station and the Governor’s ship undertaking an investigation, there are only two moorings, so we were very disappointed that we would not get to the Little Auk colony to see the many thousands of birds and possibility of Arctic Fox, still there would be other opportunities we hoped. At least we could see many Little Auks flying around along with Fulmar, Puffin and Kittiwake.
Instead of landing we set sail for the open sea and the Continental Shelf in search of sea mammals. Conditions were choppy and not entirely suitable for Cetacean watching and this wasn’t what Sarah signed up for, nevertheless her sea sickness patches worked and I spotted two Humpback Whales, unfortunately we were only able to get 4 other people on the displaying whales as everyone else was at the bow of the ship while we were watching from a sheltered spot on the stern, we did tell a crew member but as the whales weren’t following us they decided not to go back to relocate them.
Then I think pretty much all the passengers on deck (Bow and Stern) were rewarded with sightings of a pod of the relatively rare White-beaked Dolphin.

 

[dandsblair]

Edgeoya and Barentsoya Islands

Sundneset & Diskobukta Thursday, 11 July 2013

No landing early morning due to high winds, and a lack of walrus ashore meant a zodiac trip wouldn’t be productive, so planned landing at Kapp Lee was bypassed.
Instead, we sailed over to Sundneset on Barentsøya Island, where everyone was able to get off the ship for the first time in a couple of days.
While we were waiting for our deck to be called to the Mud Room to board the zodiacs, we saw our first King Eiders, there was three amongst a group of 12 common eiders in flight. We also saw a few on the water from the zodiac as we sailed ashore.

While there was not a plethora of wildlife ashore, there was plenty of interesting flora indeed some people said, the tundra was ablaze with colour due to the recent bloom of high Arctic flowers, perhaps a bit of an overstatement but not as devoid of life as might be expected.
Over the stream in an area of mud just above the permafrost we could see some reindeer and then a pair of Ptarmigan.
Unfortunately we couldn’t get close as the mud was like a sort of quicksand and people in previous years had been stuck here.


The afternoon saw us visit Diskobukta in the afternoon. This site is known for a dramatic canyon that forms an background for a very large Kittiwake colony. The area was bisected by a river which with a bit of care we were able to cross and the more mobile amongst us got very close to the cliff where an Arctic Fox was resting. The canyon walls were literally covered with nesting kittiwakes I estimated around 80,000 but who know the real number, with just the odd glaucous gull towards the edges.
The cacophony created by thousands of continually calling seabirds in the enclosed canyon was long with the smell was close to providing sensory overload.

Most of the birds were still incubating or tending recently hatched chicks and the number of broken eggs and bones suggested that the Arctic Foxes were being reasonable successful. There were at least three foxes present all of them without the lovely winter coat that you usually see in photographs, instead they looked rather scruffy with just a smattering of white about them.

Other birds seen included Snow Bunting, Pink-footed Goose, Red Throated Diver and Black Guillemot.

 

[Jos Stratford]

Nice Polar Bears, I had seriously though of Svalbard for the bears, but opted for the gamble of summer bears in Churchill. Still wouldn't mind a bash at Svalbald though, Arctic Fox pretty nice too...

 

[StuartReeves]

Where was your Yellowhammer photo taken? If taken in Svalbard (which I suspect not based on the vegetation in the background) then it would be a real rarity!

 

[Jos Stratford]

Where was your Yellowhammer photo taken?

Pay attention Stuart T'was near Oslo ...

 

[James Lowther]

nice report so far.
notice you are trying to do a "night parrot" with your arctic fox photos though!
James

 

[dandsblair]

Negribreen, Heleysundet & Ormholet

We awoke to much brighter weather and a mild temperature of 6˚C, the blue skies and sunshine certainly made the impressive Negribreen shine. On the North end of Storfjord, this glacier resembles an ice shelf. While it appears to float, it is actually resting on ground which sits below sea level.

As the ship took us closer there were huge numbers of Kittiwakes and Fulmars both on the water and on the ice near the glacier face. As we got within about 300M there was a massive calving which sent substantial waves towards the ship, but we need not have worried (actually I don’t think anyone else did as they carried on taking photos or video while the wave approached us, and all we got was a gentle shaking.


The plan for the afternoon was to go ashore on one of the islands in the Heleysundet Channel, however when the scouts were out they found a bear swimming across the channel and he disappeared onto the Island. Norwegian laws bans you from going ashore when there is a bear in the vicinity and if you encounter a bear you have to leave as quickly as you can. The expedition leader summed up the dilemma, if people are in danger then they will try to scare off the bear, first with flares but ultimately they may have to shoot the bear which obviously no one wants. In any event it would actually be less paperwork to shoot the passenger rather than the bear, so we wouldn’t be going ashore.
However the scouts reported back that we could go out in zodiacs or stay with the ship while it sailed through Heleysundet, an extremely narrow and difficult channel to navigate, our zodiacs would go through an even narrower passage Ormholet (worm hole). We were in for a real treat as we were told not many expedition ships dare to venture to these channels and bays and even the most experienced staff were unsure of what we might encounter, (the captain admitted to a few stiff drinks after he emerged as the ship hit speeds 5 knots beyond the normal high speed), we went through a bit more sedately by Zodiac. We were greeted by feeding Kittiwakes, taking full advantage of strong currents and the nutrients they can provide and parking themselves on icebergs and bergy bits. I then spotted 3 Red Phalarope just before the entrance to the channel. As we sailed through the rippling tide we were rewarded with spectacular views of columnar basaltic rock cliffs resembling Lego blocks. Barnacle Geese, Glaucous Gulls and Black Guillemots were present as we eased our way through this very narrow channel our way back to M/S Expedition.

On deck for the next few hours we started to see lots of Brunich's Guillemots and got our first Ivory Gull of the trip (actually only our second ever after a bird on our local beach at St Annes), this was much more natural amongst the ice.
Later that night we arrived at Torellneset and anchored up overnight. From the deck we could see that there were at least a dozen Walrus ashore and we hoped that we would be able to get over to see them tomorrow.
I couldn't help but check every couple of hours through the night that the Walrus were still there - they were, and hoping that maybe a bear or two would be attracted by the smell.

 

[dandsblair]

Don't know what happened there,

nice report so far.
notice you are trying to do a "night parrot" with your arctic fox photos though!
James

It was meant to be a different photo

 

[MKinHK]

Love the walrus shot

Any pix of the Ivory Gull or King Eiders?

Cheers
Mike

 

[hampers]

Keep it coming, excellent read - thank you.

Phil

 

[dandsblair]

Did you get them at Churchill?

Nice Polar Bears, I had seriously though of Svalbard for the bears, but opted for the gamble of summer bears in Churchill. Still wouldn't mind a bash at Svalbald though, Arctic Fox pretty nice too...

Did you get them in Churchill?

 

[Farnboro John]

Did you get them in Churchill?

Who else would go looking for Polar Bears on a bicycle?

John

 

[Jos Stratford]

Did you get them in Churchill?

It is always a gamble at Churchill in summer, some years they are in the area, some years they are elsewhere along the coast ...and beyond the very limited road network, it is then inaccessible. The best chance is by going in the immediate weels following ice break up, ie early June, before they wander off.

I got lucky and found seven in a few days, as John implies mostly by searching on foot and bicycle, one day by renting a truck. The big bear industry is essentially non-existant in summer, it is just you and the bears. I think limited tundra buggy tours are available though, mostly to look at the general tundra and not out to the cape where the bears linger in autumn.

Amazing for Beluga Whales though - hundreds and hundreds in the river mouth.

A few photogrpahs to tempt you that way ...three of bears, one of my personalised tundra buggy

 

[dandsblair]

Torellneset & Bråsvellbreen

In our guide book it said this island would be almost entirely covered in ice making it rather inhospitable due to the polar influence of the Barents Sea. In fact it was 12 degrees and quite sunny with just a cool breeze making it feel like about 6 or 7% and there was very little ice. Fortunately the wind was OK for zodiacs and there were no bears seen within the perimeter, so after breakfast we went ashore, where the walrus were still waiting for us. We landed south of the walrus haul-out so as not to disturb them, and walked along the pebble and sand beach. The expedition guides roped of an off an area about 30 yards from the walrus, where we could view them without disturbing them. This was a group of about 12 males or 13 males it was difficult to actually count the tusks whatever the angle.

After viewing the walrus, a perimeter was set up so that we could walk freely about the area. The two off us decided to walk round the opposite route from everyone else but on speaking to other birders afterwards we didn’t see or miss anything different. For us birds viewable from the pebbles either on the pools or just off the beach were Kittiwakes, Fulmars, Brünich’s Guillemots, Snow Buntings, Purple Sandpipers and Arctic Terns. An Arctic Skua pestered a Kittiwake until it dropped its prey at sea and we saw our first Long-tailed Skua of the trip, before heading back to the beach. We were last back onto the ship and managed to see one walrus swimming around but the rest were pretty inactive.

After returning to the ship, we moved on to Bråsvellbreen, which at 170 kilometers across and 250K deep is the biggest glacier front in the Northern Hemisphere. From the ship we watched the almost pristine ice front, which went on seemingly forever, revealing stunning waterfalls every few hundred meters and some calving though not as spectacular as yesterday.

On the desk I was doing some sea-watching, I got us on a fairly distant Sabine Gull and then when an Ivory Gull flew really close tried to get Sarah on it and get some shots at the same time, unfortunately I managed to fall down a few stairs onto the lower deck and managed to cut my hand on the non-slip deck surface, just lots of lacerations/ a bruised palm/ bit of blood and bashed knee and some embarrassment was all I suffered in total but I did break the lens hood which luckily took most of the force, but fortunately no damage to camera or long lens. I dropped the 7D and big lens in the cabin for the afternoon until I could tape up the hood with some gaffer tape (bought this in Longyearbyen when my tripod fell apart).

An hour or so later after some use of the first-aid kit, we went for a Zodiac cruise through the glacier ice, where even with the 50D and a shorter lens I got a few decent seal shots. We saw both bearded and ringed seals.

When we got back on deck after the cruise and we sat at the stern of the ship having Ice-cream and watching the ice go by, it was at least 13 degrees and nice and sunny, when another Ivory Gull came right up to the ship in perfect light, we both enjoyed the bird and pointed it out to a few other passengers but believe it or not I didn’t photograph it, one of our fellow birders John did get a good flight shot, I didn't worry as I thought amongst the ice we would see plenty more but I never did get a shot and other birds we saw later were fairly distant, so not even a record.

 

[dandsblair]

Sarah update

On reading the thread, Sarah - said I should mention the food was excellent and the crew were extremely friendly.

 

[dandsblair]

Will give that a try

It is always a gamble at Churchill in summer, some years they are in the area, some years they are elsewhere along the coast ...and beyond the very limited road network, it is then inaccessible. The best chance is by going in the immediate weels following ice break up, ie early June, before they wander off.

I got lucky and found seven in a few days, as John implies mostly by searching on foot and bicycle, one day by renting a truck. The big bear industry is essentially non-existant in summer, it is just you and the bears. I think limited tundra buggy tours are available though, mostly to look at the general tundra and not out to the cape where the bears linger in autumn.

Amazing for Beluga Whales though - hundreds and hundreds in the river mouth.

A few photogrpahs to tempt you that way ...three of bears, one of my personalised tundra buggy

Great bears, we have a few more closer shots to show later, for us a bit of a disappointment was we didn't get any Beluga, told it was about 50-50 chance round Svalbard.

 

[dandsblair]

No ivory gull shots

Love the walrus shot

Any pix of the Ivory Gull or King Eiders?

Cheers
Mike

See latest didn't get Ivory gull shot, although might ask John Gordon for his.
Grab of a poor King Eider from zodiac by t.

 

[kitefarrago]

Could you say a bit more about the ship and operations on it?

I did a similar trip (but early in the season, so not the full circumnavigation, but basically going north from Longyearbyen, a bit into the Hinlopenstratet, a bit into the pack ice, and back), all in a week.

At the time, there were a number of ice-strengthened Russian-owned (but leased by Western companies) boats taking about 50-odd passengers doing these trips.

The number of passengers has an impact when it comes to boarding everybody into zodiacs, for example. With our numbers that worked okay. The ships allowed wildlife watching in the open day either from the bow, or from a deck above that. Shared spaces were two `dining rooms' (everything was very informal), a place where one could get hot drinks, with a small library, and a presentation room in the bowels of the boat. I understand that EU legislation came in that meant these ships would have to be equipped with expensive sprinkler systems in order to operate in these waters, and now these trips are run by boats with roughly twice the number of passengers.

We typically had two outings per day (one in the morning, one in the afternoon), which were either landings or zodiac cruises. (A number of pictures from this trip back in 2006 have recently been added to my gallery.) I've wondered what travelling on the bigger boats is like now, and I'd appreciate some info on that.

In terms of species sighted we're pretty much on a par, although we didn't have ringed seal (and I didn't manage to get onto the only Sabine's gull of the trip).

Andrea