Svalbard again

The last week I have spent again guiding around Svalbard. This time a group of primarily Australian passengers went with me and my colleagues from Aurora Expeditions. Polar bears were again high on the agenda, and we went had several crowd pleasers out on the sea ice. We manage to reach the remote Kvitøya as the first ship this season. All of the 9 bears but one came close to our ship or zodiacs, and all passengers were of course very happy. It is all about finding the right kind of bears, not the total number of bear sightings.

We also found at least four Blue whales (blåhval) on this trip, actually almost as many as our Fin whales (finhval). But then again, we did search out the good areas for Blues and didn’t go so much after the fins this time. Blue whales have, if you know where to go, become fairly easy to find around the Svalbard waters. Apart from great bear and whale sightings, we had Arctic foxes (fjellrev) hunting geese, Walrus (hvalross) fights and both Ivory gull (ismåke) and Sabine’s gull (sabinemåke) made it to the trip list as well. The most remarkable sighting bird wise, even though not a new species for my Big year list, was three Great-northern divers (islom) in a possible breeding area at the east coast. A species that is very rare in Svalbard indeed. We also found a new spot with very accessible Puffins (lunde) for photography. Something I have been searching for in Svalbard for some time. Puffins are always very high on foreign tourists’ wish list when they come to Svalbard.

Next week, I will have another guiding tour for Aurora Expedition. Hopefully I manage to add something to my Big Year list this time – but it will have to be a rarity.

This bear stayed with us for an hour, and apparantly he liked being taken
pictures of. No, it is not a circus bear, just a crowd pleaser.

Even though being big and heavy, polar bears can be cery gentle as well. This
one was showing its body control by climbing along the ledges feeding on
 guillemot chicks. He even manged to take an adult!

The world's largest mammal ever lived on earth. We found four blue whales
on our voyage. 

Brünnich's guillemot (polarlomvi) throwim himself out from the bird cliff. 

This voyage, we found a very nice spot for puffin photography. A colony of
about one hundred birds, and many of them in only a fewww meters distance.
For sure the best place to photograph this species in Svalbard.

Until next time....

-EG-

A Fight for Life

We people often like to think of nature as a romantic place, and that all the animals and birds in general live in harmony and peace. As mind disturbing as it is, the truth is actually quite the opposite. Except for the odd occasion of witnessing an eagle taking a fish, or a hawk eating a bird, I rarely get to see the cruelty when I am just out birding or photographing. However, when I am out doing fieldwork, I get a much more intimate version, and I often spend weeks and days going in the same area for doing nest checks, meassurements and other scientific necessities. In this way, one get very close to the every day life of the object one is studying, and often I find myself in situations where my mind is disturbed a little bit from the reason why I got interested in biology in the first place. To realize how brutal and cruel the natural world actually can be, is indeed far from the thought of purity and harmony where life is a contest about friendship, beauty and beeing preetiest.


I came across one such situation the other day, when a brünnich’s guillemot came walking on the beach. The bird was seriously wounded, and blood was dripping on its otherwise white feathers. He had been in a fight. The bird came walking straight towards us, and stopped litterealy between my legs. Nearby, there were several glaucous gulls observing it all. Glaucous gull is the top predator of the Arctic, and they immediately see if an easy meal is about to happen. The poor guillemot knew his life was ebbing out, and going towards an end. I think this otherwise quite shy bird came to us, because he wanted some protection. He knew that the gulls didn’t dare to eat it when he was close to us, and by doing this he extended his maybe already 30 year old life by an hour until we left him alone on the black sandy beach….

The Brünnich's guillemot deadly injured in a fight for life

This scenario happened close to a bird cliff on the east coast of Svalbard. Bird cliffs are places where certain species gather in high numbers to breed. At this particular bird cliff, we counted 44 000 of them together on a very limited space (yes – I did count them all – as this was one of my tasks this summer). Why they choose to breed in flocks and not one by one is complex and far beyond my understanding of how life is put together, but in short it has to at least something do with certain requirements to the geology to make potential nesting sites and that its less chance of beeing killed by a predator when you are one of many instead of alone. One hitch by nesting close together is of course that it gets crowdy, and that somebody might take the place that you actually wanted yourself. In fact, these birds nest so close to each other that if they miss their landing spot by a few centimeters they land on the neighbour’s property. They have to rely on high precision flying, but even when all precautions are made for turbulence wind or last second divertion from another of the thousands of birds in the air to avoid a collision - the final approach can be more challenging than ideal. This is indeed a fertilizer for disputes. A breeding spot, or nest site is of course a valuable thing. The more experienced and dominant the individual is, the more nesting spots you can choose from. Making the right decision and allocation of a nest can easily be the difference between life and death. A nesting site is a valuable resource – and the more individuals competing for the same resources the more likely it is that the individual has to fight for its position. The competition increases, and winners and loosers are made.

The bird knew he only had minutes left to live, desperately trying to

extend his life by seeking shelter from the glaucous gulls perching nearby

 - watching him step by step

As if this is not more than worrying when studying and realizing this in nature, I often think of what the world will be for humans in the future. When I went to college, I was told there were about 4,5 billion people on earth. Today, about 15 years later, the same population estimate has increased to about 7 billions, and the number is increasing every single hour of the day. All this people needs a place to stay, something to eat. Basically they need to live, and to live they need to use natural resources. To live is a constant fight for life, both for the humans and for wildlife.

Planet Earth is unfortunately not a renewable resource – and that is the real worrying part!


-EG-