A NEW YEAR'S GREETING

WISHING YOU & YOUR FAMILY 

a

VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WALRUS on SHEARWATER JOURNEYS'

2013 CHARTER VOYAGE

SVALBARD

One of many POLAR BEARS at SVALBARD

BRUNNICH'S GUILLEMOTS

on their nesting wall

SVALBARD

DEBI ON PACK ICE

SVALBARD

SEE YOU OUT THERE IN 2014!

Debi Shearwater

RETURN FROM SVALBARD: THE ARCTIC PEARL

Greetings Birders & Adventurers,

A group of 12 keen adventurers have recently returned from Shearwater Journeys' successful charter Svalbard charter voyage, 28 June to 8 July. This is a brief report of our adventures.

As with most voyages to this region, we departed from Longyearbyen. Our blue vessel is parked, above, at the dock. She is dwarfed by the larger cruise ship! Even the most remote places on Earth are now being impacted by cruise ships. The locals told me that in one day, 4,000 passengers disembarked from one such ship in — in a town that only numbers 2,400 full time residents! Longyearbyen is located at Adventfjorden, a side arm of Isfjorden.

An image from the top deck of our ship, showing passengers loading the Zodiac. Only five steps and we're all in the Zodiac! And, with only 12 guests on board, we all fit in one Zodiac. This saves us precious time — more time on shore! Images above and below, Feodor Pitcairn, copyright.

Our little ship navigates through ice, above, or open seas below. She is so small that she can fit in places where larger ships (even if "only" 100 passengers), cannot dare venture. In addition, our captain records his own soundings for use at the time of the voyage, and on later voyages. Much of this region is uncharted. Image below, Feodor Pitcairn, copyright.

Our expedition leader, below, carries a rifle. This is required by the government of Svalbard.

Guests on shore, below. Images, above and below, Feodor Pitcairn, copyright.

Among our group of enthusiastic guests were professional photographers (National Geographic & Google), a geologist, a botanist, ranchers from California who raise grass fed beef, a biologist and retired folks. 

The supreme icon of the High Arctic, the polar bear, was naturally one of our main target species. It had been a tough season prior to our arrival in the Svalbard region. Ice was everywhere, making the polar bears quite dispersed. And, not easy to find. Some trips recorded only 1 or 2 sightings. One trip saw none. So, we felt fortunate to find 14 polar bears, the highest count on any voyage up to that point. But, this pales in comparison to the 48 bears we saw on last year's voyage. Ice was quite different last year, though. Only remnants of pack ice were around, concentrating the bears. Nevertheless, both voyages enjoyed classic polar bear studies.

We observed a total of 14 polar bears, some close, some distant, some very close! 

We watched this mother and her cub of the year (COY) for more than an hour before they both swam off to some unknown destination.

 

We came upon the bear, below, just as it was finishing up consuming a ringed seal. Ivory gulls were in attendance along with the ubiquitous glaucous gulls. This image begs the question, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" I guess the answer would have to be, "Not always."

Walrus, another High Arctic icon were also high on our list of most wanted marine mammals. 

 About midnight, our first night out, the captain all but put the ship's bow on the beach in order to give folks a great view of walrus! Seriously, our expedition leader said that if he had jumped off the bow, it would have been a dry landing.

One of the advantages of being on such a small ship was that the crew was always actively looking for wildlife, as well. This sometimes resulted in a 3 a.m. wake up call! Such things do not happen on 100 passenger ships. Oh, the joys!

 

In the end, we saw walrus many places, including one landing with nearly 400 on shores, and piled up in mud wallows inland — a bit of a surprise. 

Reindeer, the most northerly of all deer, are circumpolar on the tundra. The Svalbard reindeer is a smaller subspecies of the Siberian and Canadian reindeer. Both sexes wear antlers, the only deer to do so. We had wonderful encounters with these slow-moving grazers, including some small calves.

 

 Other marine mammals included views of one blue whale — great to see this species returning to this region, and two beluga whales hugging the edges of a glacier!

Seals included the bearded seal, above, ringed seals, harp seals and harbor seals, below. This is the most northerly population of harbor seals. 

 

Birding included a visit to the famous basalt cliff colonies of Alkefjell. 

Tens of thousands of seabirds, nest on these cliffs. Brunnich's guillemot (Thick-billed murre), black guillemot, Atlantic puffin and little auk were recorded during our voyage.

 While nearly all visitors view these spectacular cliffs from a Zodiac, our captain was able to bring the ship within a few feet of the rock wall, allowing us to capture wonderful images from eye level while standing on the steadier deck of the bow of the ship.

 Among the gulls, black-legged kittiwake, below, were well represented.

 Glaucous gulls on ice, below. Our keen expedition leader also spotted great black-backed gull, herring gull and lesser black-backed gull.

You'll have to look very closely to pick out the ivory gull feeding at the seal kill in the image, below. In all, we saw 19 ivory gulls.

Arctic skua (parasitic jaeger) was by far the most commonly sighted skua. However, we did see long-tailed skuas, pomarine skuas and a pair of nesting great skuas.

 Arctic tern, below, was observed every day of our voyage, as well as at Longyearbyen. Shorebirds included purple sandpiper, sanderling, dunlin, red phalarope, ringed plover, all at nests. The only songbird we saw was the snow bunting. 

Waterfowl was represented by red-throated diver (on nests), common diver (unusual, possibly breeding), many common eider nests, long-tailed duck, king eiders (with a flock of 14 at Longyearbyen), below. Geese included barnacle, brent and pink-footed, all on nests.

 

Svalbard hosts a surprising variety of plants which we delighted in finding. Moss campion, below, has flowers that face south, therefore it is often called "tundra compass." We saw other campions, buttercups, the endemic Svalbard poppy, scurvygrass, loads of purple saxifrage, cinquefoil and the gorgeous boreal Jacob's ladder. 

The landscapes were varied, sometimes foggy, icy, rainy.

Our Zodiac travels along the pack ice edge, Image by Feodor Pitcairn, copyright.

 

And, finally, our expedition leader took us out to 'play in the ice' one day. I've seen that twinkle in his eye before! He beached the nose of the Zodiac on a piece of two foot thick pack ice surrounded by moving bergs all around. And, we all jumped off on to the ice for some fun — uh, huh, playing with the ice!

Yes, we had our life jackets on.

 

Svalbard is a beautiful wilderness.

 

 We were the first voyage of the season to circumnavigate Spitsbergen, primarily because the ice changed enough to let us do so.
Thank you for sharing this time.

 Yours in expedition adventure,

Debi Shearwater

All images: Debi Shearwater, unless indicated otherwise. Copyright.

Sojourner in Scotland & Baltic & Nordic Europe

Howdy, Birders,

From April 23rd until July 19th, I was on an extended journey in Scotland and Baltic and Nordic Europe. All images, below, copyright, Debi Shearwater. Please ask permission to use. This is just a brief recap of my trip which included visiting thirteen different countries. I will write a more detailed report later this fall, complete with more images. It was an amazing trip consisting of several distinct parts, beginning in Glasgow, Scotland. On the morning of April 25th, our group boarded the M/S Stockholm and set sail amongst for the Hebrides and St Kilda for a seven day voyage. This voyage was previously detailed here. Below, is my image of the Callanish Stones, one of my most favorite sites. 

We enjoyed some incredibly beautiful scenery and weather. 

Absolutely hands down, the very busy Atlantic puffins on Lunga Island were a delight. 

A visit to Scotland would not be complete without a castle. 

At the end of the voyage, I opted to stay in the town of Paisley, where I visited the stunning Paisley Abbey which dates from the 1100's. 

On May 3, I flew from Glasgow, via Amsterdam to Tallinn, Estonia. Here, I would spend 36 days, traveling from one end of this gorgeous country to the other. Estonia is a fabulous place to see large numbers of birds that are not easily found in other parts of Europe, or that are dwindling in numbers. My stay began with four days of touring the capitol city, Tallinn which is one of the best preserved medieval cities. Tallinn Old Town became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 1997. Pictured, below is one of the towers.

There is so much to write about my long stay in Estonia. I arrived at what was really the end of winter. Trees were not yet leafed out. Ice had to be scraped from my car windshield each morning. Storks were building their nests atop old, abandoned chimney stacks, telephone poles, and just about anything that could hold a nest. Before I would leave the country, the trees would be covered with leaves, making it far more difficult to see small warblers. And, the storks would have young in their nests. May 17th was the day that turned the tide, from ice in the morning to warming sunshine and the first mosquitos of spring on that hot night— pure indication that the seasons had changed, literally overnight. What could be more rewarding than watching spring unfold across a countryside over the course of five weeks' time?

There are many birds to write about, but that will come in future blogs. Chaffinches were by far the most common, daily bird. 

This Common Rosefinch was in full song on a barely leafed out willow at Soomaa National Park.

A male Bullfinch was eating flower buds.

There is so much to say about lovely Estonia— about the birds, wildlife and the marvelous folks I met along the way! The countryside is stunning. So much more to tell about this place. One of the best parts of traveling, was that I had ample time to sit and talk with people for several hours at a time. I rambled around, turning down any road that looked interesting. Staying in little apartments, shopping at the local grocery stores, doing laundry, and basically "just living" like the local folks. Eventually, however, it was time to move on. So, I flew from Tallinn to Copenhagen, Denmark. For two days, I toured museums and sites in Copenhagen, including Tivoli Gardens the world's second oldest amusement park.

On June 9th, I embarked Oceania Cruise line's Nautica for a 10 day, luxury cruise, "Treasures of the Baltic Sea." 

Bring on the deck chairs! Yes, indeed, this was a luxury cruise (which I got a great deal on). Each day, our ship made port in a new city, many of them once part of the Hanseatic League. 

Our final two days were spent at the superbly stunning St. Petersburg, Russia— just indescribable. 

On June 19th, I disembarked in Stockholm, Sweden, not the least bit unhappy because I was fulfilling a life-long childhood desire to visit Sweden. A glitch with my hotel reservation caused me to book at a great hotel, right along the waterfront in Gamla Stan. (Old Town). Over the course of the next two days, I took in as many sites of Stockholm as I could, riding the ferry across the way to see the great ship, Vasa, among other sites. 

June 21st found me at the Stockholm airport on a flight bound for the Aland Islands where I would spend MidSummer with the Swedish folks. MidSummer is one of, if not the biggest holiday in Sweden. I watched some 17 MidSummer Poles in various stages of completion. These poles will remain standing for the entire year, until they are redressed for next year's holiday.

Returning to Stockholm airport, I retrieved my left luggage on June 25th and flew to Malmo. Picked up a rental car in Malmo and began to explore Skane, southern Sweden. 

This was a much bigger part of a dream-come-true-trip for me because my Swedish relatives had emigrated from this part of Sweden during the late 1800's. I was curious to see the cities and countryside. I visited the picturesque city of Ystad and the more industrial city of Trelleborg. Nothing really struck me as a "home" of any of my relatives. The farms were a reminder of their life in the countryside of Pennsylvania.

Returning to Malmo, I stayed at the old Mayfair Hotel Tunnein, near the Central Train Station. It was here that I could "feel" that my Uncle Eddie might well have stayed in the late 1800's. He might well have taken the train to Trelleborg from this very hotel. On June 30th, I took a train from Central Station to Copenhagen airport. From there, I few to Oslo, Norway. 

At Oslo, I met up with some of the folks who were joining the Shearwater Journeys' birding pre-trip. For the next five days, we explored many birding places with our local guide, Jon Luras. It was not the best time of year to see birds, but this trip was set up to make the most of our time, prior to joining the Shearwater Journeys' charter voyage at Svalbard. Nevertheless, we managed to find about 120 species of birds on our Oslo pre-trip. Some specialties in the high tundra, pictured below, included: Bluethroats feeding young in their nests; Ring Ouzel, Dotterel and newly fledged Dippers. We had a lot of fun— one participant decried the trip as "so much fun it was practically illegal."

On July 6th, our birding party, and by now, we were indeed a "party," flew from Oslo to Longyearbyen, Svalbard. 

The very small town of Longyearbyen supports quite an array of birds and wildlife, beyond the human kind, that is!

The "Svalbard" subspecies of reindeer has shorter legs and is quite tame.

Now, we were enjoying the "Midnight Sun" with a full 24 hours of daylight— and, I do mean bright sunlight at all hours. This Arctic fox was hunting in the early morning. It stole an egg from a Common Eider nest. 

 Of course our quest was for the icon of the High Arctic— the polar bear!

 So, after two and a half busy days at Longyearbyen, we embarked our little ship, M/S Stockholm on July 8th for Shearwater Journeys' 11 day charter expedition voyage like no other.

Departing Longyearbyen, below, the scenery and lighting was just stunning.

Our little ship, with only 12 guests on board took us places where no other ships could go. Our captain has his own soundings which enable him to do this safely.

 

Slowly, Captain Per brought the ship to within four feet of a solid rock cliff of thousands and thousands of nesting Brunnich's Guillemots (Thick-billed Murres). 

Somewhere, at the bottom of this cliff is our Zodiac on the beach. All twelve of us fit in one Zodiac when making landings. This saves loads of time and allows for maximum time on shore with wildlife.

The photographers had a field day!

And, the Polar Bears— in total, we saw 48 polar bears. At one stop we had 21 polar bears in view, some of them with cubs.

We spent almost two days in the pack ice where Ivory Gulls reign.

But, Black-legged Kittiwakes are far more numerous.

We saw Polar Bears! 

We saw Polar Bears up close!

And, even very close! It was thrilling. It was amazing. 

And, we had so much fun, it probably was illegal!

Our little party of extremely happy adventurers disembarked on July 18th and flew to Oslo that evening. Most folks flew home on July 19th and are now editing thousands of images. 

Let the good times roll on,

Debi Shearwater

Charter Master