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Tromso in winter (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Swissboy
- Start date
Id love to photograph the northern lights, tried a few years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, and no luck. Wish you success
Thanks Birdman7! I hope to benefit from the recent special activity of the sun. But I'm also looking for birds to a minor extent.
@TWM: I'm definitely interested to get some info when you are back.
TWM
Well-known member
Don,t worry about aurora, worry about the weather! If the sky is clear there will almost certainly be aurora of some sort. If the sun has been active then there will be better aurora.
It starts off looking like a hazy cloud but later on should get more obvious. We've had aurora 3 nights out of 4, the no show was because of 8/8 cloud cover. The show generally starts after 19.00 and then you get good shows followed by lulls. The best has been around midnight [ 23.00 to 01.00 ]. We have had some mega shows [photos to prove it -but not on here]. If you are on the Hurtigruten ferry look out for King Eiders--I had one raft of about 50 birds near Hammerfest plus others seen. No white winged gulls seen.
Total species seen is about 30.
Good luck
It starts off looking like a hazy cloud but later on should get more obvious. We've had aurora 3 nights out of 4, the no show was because of 8/8 cloud cover. The show generally starts after 19.00 and then you get good shows followed by lulls. The best has been around midnight [ 23.00 to 01.00 ]. We have had some mega shows [photos to prove it -but not on here]. If you are on the Hurtigruten ferry look out for King Eiders--I had one raft of about 50 birds near Hammerfest plus others seen. No white winged gulls seen.
Total species seen is about 30.
Good luck
Thanks for your reports! Any Siberian Jays, by any chance? In case you remember specific locations particularly for water birds that would be great. I'll have a car and can thus do some driving to other accessible coasts. But no boat except if there is a local ferry. Looking forward to get more info from you when you are back.
TWM
Well-known member
Siberian Jays need woodland and there is very little of that near the coast.
The only water is the sea (all the lakes are frozen).
Your best bet for both Aurora and birding would be to get the Hurtigruten Ferry up to Kirkenes and back.
Tromso is very well lit so it is difficult to see Aurora there due to light pollution, you would need to head out of town.
The only water is the sea (all the lakes are frozen).
Your best bet for both Aurora and birding would be to get the Hurtigruten Ferry up to Kirkenes and back.
Tromso is very well lit so it is difficult to see Aurora there due to light pollution, you would need to head out of town.
Thanks, I was afraid there would be a lot of light pollution. That's one reason for renting a car. So I need to find out where to drive, but I expect to get some info locally. Getting local info about birding will be harder. So I hope the bird finding book that's on its way will arrive in time.
When I wrote water birds, I did not mean to find any on freshwater, though that's where they'll eventually head for.
The Hurtigruten ship might be attractive, but if they have light on the ship, it would be downright impossible to escape that. Plus, there will be even more wind than on land. We'll see. At any rate, I'm very much looking forward to my first visit to Norway.
Thanks again for your much appreciated feedback!
Little Auks would be great, but there is no time for this now. One of my high priority species, actually. But then, there are others as well. So another trip up north some time later in the year would be in order, but not this year.
For this trip, the ferry arrives at Kirkenes the day we need to fly back from Tromso. I guess I did not think about this possibility when I made my reservations. But it was clearly meant to be a Northern Lights trip originally. The birding came in later when the question arose about daylight activities. That's why I did not get my bird finding book in advance. I had not even known there was one. It's on the way now.
As for Steller's Eider, I had perfect views on the breeding grounds at Barrow, Alaska last June. But I'd love to see it again, of course.
Back from the trip
We are back from out short trip, excited, though not that much for the birds seen. We were spoiled by the weather and really became fond of this exciting wintery landscape. The problems encountered were, first, and important for the purpose of the trip, the sky covered up on each of the three evenings. Though only one night was such that there was no chance for northern lights. On the other two nights, there were parts that cleared up again. This meant, however, driving to those areas that looked most promising. At any rate, we did get to see what we had wanted, some few great displays of the northern lights shows. But then, we definitely did not get enough. Rather, it feels like we'd like to see more in the future. A typical case of addiction, I think. I could not get any pictures though. My camera simply did not register what we saw. There are obvious limitations to a super zoom like my FZ-150. But I also did not try very hard, I was simply too much fascinated and involved observing the changes that were going on.
Birdwise, there were rather limited opportunities. And as it had rained the previous week, conditions had become dangerously icy in most areas. So we were more than glad to have studded tires on our rental car. Also, as a result of the ice, it was virtually impossible to walk around other than on streets. Thus, almost no small passerines, a single Waxwing and a single Fieldfare at the university. Fine views of White-tailed Eagles, lots of Common Eiders, and a fair number of Long-tailed Ducks, but only one raft of King Eiders so far away that it became difficult to even identify them as there were no males in full plumage. A single Redshank was the only shorebird, and a few Black Guillemots the only alcids seen. In some ways, the Black-legged Kittiwakes that had already started to occupy nest sites and begun courting were the most unexpected bird observation.
We had driven over 650 kilometers during the 72 hours we had the car; quite a bit considering the conditions.
We are back from out short trip, excited, though not that much for the birds seen. We were spoiled by the weather and really became fond of this exciting wintery landscape. The problems encountered were, first, and important for the purpose of the trip, the sky covered up on each of the three evenings. Though only one night was such that there was no chance for northern lights. On the other two nights, there were parts that cleared up again. This meant, however, driving to those areas that looked most promising. At any rate, we did get to see what we had wanted, some few great displays of the northern lights shows. But then, we definitely did not get enough. Rather, it feels like we'd like to see more in the future. A typical case of addiction, I think. I could not get any pictures though. My camera simply did not register what we saw. There are obvious limitations to a super zoom like my FZ-150. But I also did not try very hard, I was simply too much fascinated and involved observing the changes that were going on.
Birdwise, there were rather limited opportunities. And as it had rained the previous week, conditions had become dangerously icy in most areas. So we were more than glad to have studded tires on our rental car. Also, as a result of the ice, it was virtually impossible to walk around other than on streets. Thus, almost no small passerines, a single Waxwing and a single Fieldfare at the university. Fine views of White-tailed Eagles, lots of Common Eiders, and a fair number of Long-tailed Ducks, but only one raft of King Eiders so far away that it became difficult to even identify them as there were no males in full plumage. A single Redshank was the only shorebird, and a few Black Guillemots the only alcids seen. In some ways, the Black-legged Kittiwakes that had already started to occupy nest sites and begun courting were the most unexpected bird observation.
We had driven over 650 kilometers during the 72 hours we had the car; quite a bit considering the conditions.
