The Phoenix organisation, to which Margaret and I are members, advertised a charter flight from Bournemouth to Tromsø in arctic Norway that joined a three night trip on board one of Hurtigruten’s cruise ships. Although I had been to arctic regions four times before and seen most of its wildlife it had always been in summer with its 24 hour daylight and so had never seen the aurora borealis or northern lights as it is generally known now. The Gulf Stream keeps the waters off northern Norway ice-free throughout the winter and indeed makes this area about 20c warmer than it should be for this latitude.
We arrived at Tromsø to very mild conditions. It was raining and 6c. Not what you would expect at nearly 70N in March. The heavy snow seen in this photo was taken on our return five days later.
The following day most of the group opted to try dog sledding at a centre some 30 minutes out-of-town.
Quite contrary to my belief, these huskies were mild-tempered and docile.
And the puppies were quite adorable (and obviously were excused sled pulling activities).
I have never seen dogs so eager to perform as these. They would strain at the leads whenever the brake was on and leap forwards the moment it was released. A few of the sleds got caught up in small trees or overturned so there was a bit of delay. We were out for an hour and it was pretty exhilarating.
Most of the rest of the Phoenix group. Only Davril and Margaret stayed behind. Yes, I did go on holiday with nine women.
In the afternoon we boarded the MS Midnatsol which sailed at 1800.
Of course the main reason for coming on this trip was to see the aurora. It runs on an 11 year cycle with this year being at or just after the peak. Even so, the display wasn’t as good as some published photos would have you believe, however those photographers can chose the best nights and best locations for their stunning panoramas.
The problem I encountered was that my bridge camera wouldn’t give an exposure longer than one second. As a result I had to set it on 6400 ISO hence the grainy images. Also of course the photos were taken from a moving ship, further blurring the image.
Dawn the next day saw us steaming north through the many fjords.
Conditions were a bit colder here and snow came down to the foreshore. Very few birds were seen except the ubiquitous Herring Gull and Kittiwake.
Late morning we called into the pretty village of Honningsvåg on the northernmost island of Magerøya.
We transferred to the North Cape, generally considered at 71 10′ 21”N to be the most northerly point of Europe, although the next peninsula is 1.5km further north and of course Svalbard is nearly 1000km further still.
It was windy when we arrived but it soon got much worse. Even standing up to get your picture taken at the globe was a trial.
Things deteriorated rapidly when a hail shower driven by force 8 winds struck and caused everyone to run for the visitor centre.
Later we cruised eastwards towards Mehamn. Here we passed a rock formation that bore a strange resemblance to a Finnish church.
It was relatively sheltered with calmer seas in the fjords.
We arrived in Varangfjord at dawn the next day. We were now as far east as Istanbul or Durban in the southern Indian Ocean.
Varangerfjord is famous for its wintering seaducks. Hardy species from arctic Siberia don’t need to travel to the Atlantic coast for winter which they consider to be just for wusses. They prefer the harsher conditions of the eastward facing Vrangerfjord. The best views were in Vadsø harbour where I photographed these Long-tailed Ducks ….
…. this raft of Common Eider ….
…. and the wonderful King Eider, here on the sea ….
…. and here in flight ….
Best of all was the much scarcer Steller’s Eider named after Georg Wilhelm Steller, the naturalist on board Bering’s 1725 expedition across Russian searching for an eastern route to the New World. Indeed Steller became the first westerner to reach Alaska from the east.
The Steller’s Eiders stayed at the back of the flock, just a bit too distant for photography, so I have copied this stunning image of a drake by M Ravasini from the Internet Bird Collection.
We saw few birds as we crossed Varangerfjord on our way to Kirkenes on the southern shore. The best that Kirkenes harbour could offer was this Black Guillemot moulting from its mainly white winter to it mainly black summer plumage.
For an excursion we took a bus trip to the Russian border, mainly so we could get out of the town and see if there were any birds around. Here we are crossing the Pasvik river, proposed in the mid 19th century as the border between Russia and Norway, but Russia wanted some territory on the west bank so it could access an ancient Russian Orthodox Church. Norway managed to trade a few square km on the west bank for over a hundred on the east bank.
I have Russian visa for my trip in May but didn’t push my luck and try to cross. I’d have certainly missed the boat back to Tromsø.
We glimpsed a few birds in the Pasvik valley, a Fieldfare, a few Redpolls and a Great Tit and briefly saw flocks of Waxwings in Kirkenes, but from a birding perspective it was rather frustrating, but I was glad to visit this famous birding area as time did not permit this on my trip to Varanger in June 1987.
Today was Julie’s birthday and the others had arranged a cake. Bottom row L-R Sue, Julie, Linda. Top row L-R Di, me, Rosemary, Davril, Helen, Von and Margaret.
We crossed back to the north shore of Varangerfjord and sailed around the eastern side to the town of Vardø, situated on an island connected by a tunnel to the mainland. The wind increased markedly and so did the bird activity as we passed the seabird breeding cliffs of Hornøya. Identification of the many (thousands) of auks in poor light and in flight was tricky, but I thought the majority were Brunnich’s Guillemots with smaller numbers of Razorbills and even fewer Common Guillemots. King and Common Eiders abounded and I saw at least 15 Glaucous Gulls, some Gannets and a White-billed Diver. Pride of place however goes to this large pod of White-beaked Dolphins, a species I have never seen before in spite of going on dedicated boat trips to look for it.
The overnight passage was quite horrendous, the wind increased to force 10 and we were sailing straight into it. That said, the boat remained remarkably stable but we had a pretty bad night’s sleep as something came loose in the roof space above us and crashed and banged with every lurch of the ship. In the late evening we went up to the top deck to see the aurora, sheltering behind the funnel from the wind and ambient light.Very dramatic, with back-lit spray billowing around and above us whilst the green fingers of the northern lights danced in the background. The following morning things had calmed considerably as this photo shows.
Our first stop that day was at Havøysund where this black cloud ….
…. dumped a whole load of snow on us.
We had a couple of hours to look around Hammerfest, which at over 70N is claimed to be the northernmost town in the world (but again they seem to have forgotten about Longyearbyen, the capital of Svarlbard).
Perhaps Hammerfest’s claim to fame is being home to the most northerly House Sparrows in the world (unless of course you know otherwise)
A flock of Common Eider in the harbour gave better views than was possible from the ship.
So the rest of the day was taken up with the journey back to Tromsø, again there was wonderful scenery at every turn.
Our final stop in daylight was the little town of Øksfjord just before it got dark.
We arrived at Tromsø at 2345 but instead of going straight to our hotel we transferred to Tromsø’s Arctic Cathedral for a wonderful musical recital in a church with the most perfect acoustics I have ever heard. A beautiful end to a beautiful trip.
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