POLAR BEARS IN THE ARCTIC

2016

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Blue ice typical of glaciers. This is an iceberg that has calved off the Monaco Glacier in Svalbard. Typically 90% of its mass will be underwater!

Monaco Glacier.

The people in the zodiac boat help show how massive the glacier is.

Fulmar

The mountains of the Northwest Spitsbergen National Park beyond the sparse tundra.

Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus).

Although born on land they spend the majority of their time on the sea ice, which is why they are referred to as a marine mammal. This was my first sighting.

The same bear having a snooze!

The shadow of our ship on an ice floe (a section of sea ice that has broken away from the pack ice). Every summer parts of pack ice melt and in winter it refreezes. Only, with climate change, more and more of it melts each year. In the not too distant future, the whole of the pack ice covering the North Pole will melt in one summer. This will be disastrous for Polar Bears since they depend on the pack ice for hunting seals.

Coming for a closer inspection.

A Polar Bear swimming amidst the ice floes.

These are made up of saltwater, they're largely flat and the majority of its mass is above water level.

A small bit of ice that has broken away from an ice floe. It's not an iceberg. They're different, made up of freshwater and have broken away from a glacier or ice shelf.

Little Auks on Thin Ice

Bar Code.

A mirage distorts the view of the island in the distance.

North Pole Freezer.

This Polar Bear was covering up the seal carcass with ice whilst an Ivory Gull loitered close by, possibly hoping to steal a few morsels. Seals make up the majority of a Polar Bear's diet.

The Approach.

A Polar Bear swimming towards a seal carcass - the quarry of another Polar Bear! Can you see them both in the photo? Polar Bears have a great sense of smell and can detect a seal from almost 1.6km (1 mile) away.

Confrontation.

Hunger has driven the younger smaller female Polar Bear (left) to desperate measures.

The bigger male (right) is not about to relinguish its dinner.

Biding Time.

The female Polar Bear had to wait. If she'd tried to challenge the male, it wouldn't have ended well!

Breaking Ice.

The thin sea ice breaks under the weight of the female Polar Bear.

Notice the injury that she's sustained on her rear left paw.

The Shake.

Similar to other mammals, after swimming, Polar Bears will have a good shake to dispel the water from its fur to stop it getting too cold.

Leaping from ice floe to ice floe, she is trying to get closer to the seal carcass.

The sea ice is very thin in places...

...and she falls through the sea ice at the edge of the ice floe.

The Leap.

She kept edging closer and closer towards the other one, until they were on the same ice floe...

Desperately Hungry.

She didn't venture any closer because the male didn't budge until he was done. After several hours of watching this story unfold, the male finally slid into the water leaving the female to scavenge the remains.

Rolling Around.

Polar Bears will roll around on the ice to cool themselves down if they overheat.

Uninhabited Island.

You'd think there'd be no rubbish on this remote island, so far north, but not so!

The tide had washed in loads of rubbish from the sea from other parts of the world!

First Signs of Life.

Lichens growing on a rock on the sparse uninhabited island.

White Rainbow.

Also known as a fog bow, it's much like a rainbow, but lacks colour because of the smaller water droplets that create the fog.

Bow Over Bow

Ivory Gull

(Pagophila eburnea)

Dinner Time.

The view from my cabin window.

Bowhead Whales (Balaena mysticetus).

Notice the circular patch of still water that has been left behind in the wake of the whale's passage through the water. There was a whole trail of them. They're like footprints in sand.

Up Close and Personal.

The last Polar Bear we saw on the trip and the most special. It came to within a few metres of the ship, then walked around the bow. It loitered for a while and then headed off. A treasured memory.

Distracted.

The people on the zodiac were so busy watching and photographing the mass of seabirds on the Alkefjellet cliffs, they didn't see the Beluga Whales (Delphinapterus leucas) approaching them.

Alkefjellet Seabird Colony

Slow panning a Brünnich's Guillemot in flight.

This is an effective photography technique capturing the movement of a subject in a still image.

You use a slow shutter speed whilst tracking the subject to keep it in focus and blur the background.

Walrus

(Odobenus rosmarus)

Beware of Tusks.

This photo is deceptive as the Walrus at the back is not actually impaling the other one in front, it just looks like it is. Although Walrus' aren't considered to be aggressive, their tusks can be dangerous and they have been known to capsize boats. With most wildlife it's best to err on the side of caution.

Walrus Stampede.

The one at the front, closest to the water's edge, was caught unawares when the others were suddenly spooked from the beach and made a dash towards the water.

Nordaustlandet.

I'm sure we were informed this was an ice shelf - a large floating platform of ice forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline. However, from investigating further there's no suggestion there's one in Norway. It may be another glacier, but either way, it's size was mega impressive!

Iceberg Alley.

We weren't able to get any closer to Nordaustlandet due to the bad weather and the large amount of icebergs floating in the sea. The seabird flying to the right of the large iceberg helps provide scale.

Svalbard Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus)

The Chase.

An Arctic Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus), protecting its ground nesting chicks, chases two Svalbard Reindeer away.

Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) in breeding plumage.

The bill is usually yellow with a black tip, but in summer all black for males.

View across the bay from Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard.