Svalbard is a group of islands administered by Norway, far north of the Norwegian mainland and only 600 miles from the North Pole. I'm just back from a voyage round the main island, Spitsbergen. I was working as one of the naturalists aboard the Sergei Vavilov, a Russian ship charterered by One Ocean Expeditions. Here's an aerial view of part of Spitsbergen in mid-summer, taken from the SAS plane as I flew out. 60% of the landmass is covered in ice, with many huge glaciers. (Click on the picture for a larger image).
We had 72 passengers on board ship, mostly from UK. Many were from a group specializing in landscape photography, Light and Land. As with my Antarctic adventures on the sister-ship the Akademik Ioffe, the Vavilov uses zodiacs to reach remote beaches where we usually made two landings each day. In this photo one zodiac is offloading passengers at the gangway at the end of a shore excursion; while another (to the left) is awaiting the crane to be lifted back aboard.
Most visitors to Svalbard are hoping to see Polar Bears. We found five, following a great deal of searching from the ship, the zodiacs, and from shore. This young bear was well camouflaged on the snow. The pack-ice was already a few miles north of the islands - which is where the bears are most at home. Here they can continue hunting seals in the ice. The ones that stay in Svalbard over the summer (such as this one) have to make do with a meagre diet of carrion and ducks' eggs until the ice envelops the islands again in the autumn.
Another iconic mammal in Svalbard is the Walrus. During one beautifully sunny zodiac cruise, we came across these three sleepy individuals. Formerly they were hunted ruthlessly for their tusks, meat and blubber, but numbers are now recovering. Their scientific name Odobenus means 'tooth-walker,' since their feeding method consists of trawling the muddy sediments upside-down in search of bivalve molluscs (especially clams), which they feel with their whisker-like vibrissae. With great powers of suction, the clams are transferred to the mouth. An adult male weighs on average 900 kg, making the Walrus the third largest pinniped, after the two elephant seal species.
Svalbard has a short bird-list, but among them are some gems. Here is a female Red Phalarope - sometimes called Grey Phalarope after their much duller winter plumage. Phalaropes are waders, in the sandpiper family, which spend most of their time swimming. Often they swim in tight circles, disturbing their tiny food items (fly and midge larvae) and making them easier to catch. Phalaropes are one of the few families in which the female is brighter than the male. She initiates courtship, and as soon as the four eggs are laid, she plays no further part in the nesting process. The less brightly coloured male incubates the eggs and looks after the chicks.
Another special Svalbird bird is the King Eider. Here, in an alternative version of the three drake Mallard which are often seen adorning sitting-room walls, are three drake King Eiders in their icy home. Common Eiders are far more numerous here, but small numbers of Kings breed too. Other Svalbard specials include Little Auks in their thousands, Brunnich's and Black Guillemots, Glaucous and Ivory Gulls, and Arctic Terns. There are thousands of Fulmars and Kittiwakes.
The Svalbard subspecies of the Reindeer is a common sight in many places. This individual had strayed onto an area of polar desert where food was very scarce. In summer reindeer are happy eating grasses, sedges, and leaves of dwarf willow and birch. In winter, their main diet is reindeer moss, Cladonia, which is in fact a lichen. This they find by scraping away the snow. The lower photo shows an area in the polar desert where a Reindeer has died. Nutrients from its decaying corpse have fertilized the ground, allowing a growth of grasses, moss and saxifrages: and providing a little nourishment for future generations of Reindeer. These photos were taken on the barren island of Nortaustlandet. When the channel freezes over in autumn, this Reindeer will be able to cross back to the more fertile vegetation of Spitsbergen.
Spring comes late at 78 degrees north; and the season is very short. A Svalbard poppy, about an inch high, has just come into flower. More common were purple and tufted saxifrages, and several species of Arctic buttercup. Willow and birch survive on Svalbard too, but both grow prostrate, seldom more than an inch or two high. At this latitude, if you get lost in the forest, all you have to do is stand up!
During the recent Ornitholidays tour to Finland, we came across an adult male Capercaillie in the Kuusamo area. Occasionally unmated
males with too much testosterone defend their forest patch aggressively. This
one, well known locally, spends most of its days by the road and is liable to
attack anyone who steps out of the vehicle. My Finnish co-leader Pirita gives us due warning, but we are still amazed by our encounter.
For a while, the crazy Caper keeps his distance, strutting around with tail fanned and making quiet popping and gurgling sounds. We're all enjoying amazingly close views and photographic opportunities, before it suddenly launches an attack...at me!
I take this shot a second before the moment of impact. It is a privilege to be beaten around the thighs by the wings of this grumpy old grouse! Neither of us suffers any harm, but after a short break he shows he's ready for Round Two.
Now Pirita steps forward. She has had the good sense to arm herself with a pine branch, a soft object that will deflect his charge and not hurt him. Mr C gets most upset at our departure, trying to attack us as we jump into the minibus, biting Andrew’s finger, and running after us.
We flag down a motorist coming the other way to warn him since he's still strutting around in the middle of the road. But the driver tells us in English that he knows the bird well, and gestures that it's time he was shot for the pot. Finland is a country full of hunters, who shoot many thousands of grouse in a year. (During one recent year, the figures were 200,000 Black Grouse and 70,000 Capercaillies). Both species have become rare in Southern Finland, and only up in the north are the grouse holding their own. Habitat loss is implicated in the decline as much as hunting. None of us who were there on that sunny day at the end of May will ever forget our closest grouse encounter.
In April I co-led the Ornitholidays tour to Hawaii, visiting the four major islands in 13 days. We began in Oahu, flying into Honolulu from San Francisco. On the north coast we visited a golf-course that is well known as a wintering ground for wintering Bristle-thighed Curlews: the bristle-like feathers are visible if you click to enlarge the image. These rare waders are much easier to see here than on their breeding grounds in West Alaska. I remember going to find them from Nome in 1992 - we did see a pair, but not without a three and a half hour drive each way and an exhausting tundra-yomp of 7 hours, mostly on a carpet of dwarf willow!
Near Waikiki we walked up a wooded valley to see one of the forest endemics, the Oahu Elepaio. This is in the monarch flycatcher family, whose closest relatives are in the South Pacific. A simple squeaking noise attracted this recently-fledged juvenile to the branches above our heads. The local conservation authorities had been active here, spreading rat poison on the ground in the breeding territories. Almost all Hawaii's native forest birds are desperately endangered, and need some kind of helping hand.
From Oahu we flew to Hawaii itself, always known as the Big Island. Here on the slopes of one of the most active volcanoes in the world we saw our first Ne-ne or Hawaiian Goose. The world population had dropped to about 30 individuals when the Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge stepped in with a successful captive breeding programme. Now their future is assured, especially on the island of Kauai where the Small Indian Mongoose was never introduced. Unlike most wildfowl, this goose has only partially webbed feet, and the goslings don't need to be led to fresh water by their parents. Much of their food consists of berries, and they can be seen in dry, partially forested areas.
Most of the Hawaiian forest birds are in one endemic family, the Drepanididae. Their ancestors were probably a pair of wind-blown honeycreepers from Central America. The remoteness of the islands has allowed plenty of adaptive radiation, such that at least 40 unique species evolved from the original colonists. Sadly most of these are now extinct, but on our tour we managed to see 12 drepanid species. (We would have seen far fewer without my Hawaiian co-leader David). Most are small green forest canopy feeders, but the two bright red ones, the Apapane and I'iwi, are the most successful. The one illustrated here, with ibis-shaped red bill, is the I'iwi. The most deadly threat to the survival of these native forest birds is avian malaria, which was introduced accidentally. The birds that evolved here have little or no resistance to it.
Compare the I'iwi's bill with this one (right), belonging to the Palila. The Palila is also a drepanid, but has developed a crossbill-like beak, which it uses to prize open the pods of the mamane tree, (Sophora chrysophylla), in the bean family. This bird is critically endangered, and has suffered a two-thirds decline in numbers in the last 20 years. It only survives in one small area on the southern slopes of Mauna Kea, one of Hawaii's great volcanoes. The bird-songs most often heard here are of Eurasian Skylark, California Quail and even Wild Turkey (if you can call its gobbling noises 'song'): all were introduced, the latter two for hunting.
Our next island was Maui. Here is one of the most massive volcanoes on earth, Haleakala. It rises to 10,023 ft above sea level, but it starts from great depths on the sea-floor. The endemics here are hard to find and still harder to photograph, but we found plenty of obliging waders such as this Wandering Tattler, another Arctic breeder on its northbound migration. Only in breeding plumage does it show these fine bars on its underparts. Some of us went out on a whale-watching boat too: Maui is famous as a breeding ground for Humpback Whales. Like the tattler, the whales were beginning their northbound migration. During their long sojourn in the warm waters the whales fast; only in the cold waters to the north do they gorge themselves on fish and krill - a feast that has to last them six months.
Finally, we visited Kauai, the oldest of the main islands and the furthest to the north-west. Here, suburban gardens in Princeville have very distinguished breeding residents: the Laysan Albatross. They nested in this cliff-top location long before the plots were developed; and recent pairs have proved amazingly tolerant and site-faithful. Each year a successful pair raises a single chick: we saw one on a lawn, and another on a driveway, blocked off by parking cones for its own safety! The residents are proud of their annual visitors, and tolerant of folk like us snooping round their neighbourhood with long lenses.
Kauai is a great island for seabirds. Here we watched a large breeding colony of Red-footed Boobies, with a few piratical Great Frigatebirds in attendance. Sometimes a frigatebird would chase a booby and force it to disgorge food. Here is a Red-tailed Tropicbird, which nests on cliff-ledges in the same area. Tropicbirds are always a delight to watch, and used to be popular with sailors, since they rarely fly more than a day's sailing from land. So, seeing the first tropicbird meant land ahoy.
Also nesting on the same promontory were many pairs of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters. Their burrows were a common sight as we wandered along the tracks of the nature reserve. Many shearwaters only visit their nests at night; but the wedge-tail is happy to be seen by day, and at close range too. After the harrowing stories we heard about the relentless declines of the native forest species, it was a wonderful climax to the tour to be able to watch such a thriving mixed seabird colony. Hawaii is a brilliant place for a naturalist to visit - and Ornitholidays are likely to return in 2015. Many thanks to Peter Munro who has allowed me to use his excellent photos.
Two weeks ago I returned from the Ornitholidays tour to Ghana, with a group of eight. The highlights were many and varied, with just a few chosen here. In Mole National Park, we witnessed an amazing migration of Grasshopper Buzzards following heavy overnight rain. Sixty or more soared above the lodge together at midday, and headed north, for breeding grounds in the Sahel region south of the Sahara. Many others, not yet ready to leave, were attracted by hatches of termites as the winged insects emerged from the ground.
The African Jacana is a common species in most of sub-Saharan Africa, seen here at a floating nest. Visible directly below the bill and green reeds is an egg, large and beautifully marked. (Click on the image to enlarge). Once the female has laid the third of four eggs, the male takes over, incubating the clutch and looking after the chicks on his own. Meanwhile the female looks for other mates. I was especially happy to see a glimpse of the brown eggs with black scribbles, widely regarded as among the finest of all birds' egg patterns.
Returning to the Mole Lodge one evening just after dark, we came across various nightjars. Half an hour earlier we had watched a female Standard-winged Nightjar at dusk. Now we found this Long-tailed Nightjar on the sandy track ahead, and a Plain Nightjar close by. Two days later we were to witness the extraordinary sight of male Standard-winged Nightjars displaying, appearing to have two small birds fluttering above and behind them as they tried to attract females.
Ghana is a bee-eater paradise: we saw 9 species of this charismatic family during our 13 days in the field. Most striking of all was perhaps the Black Bee-eater, mundanely named but extravagantly coloured. Of all the bizarre nesting places to choose, this bird had made a tunnel in a pile of soil dumped in a car-park. However, not any old car-park would do. This one was on the edge of undisturbed forest in the Kakum National Park. Most bee-eaters are birds of open country, but the Black is essentially a forest species. Like so many of Ghana's birds, forest is essential for their breeding and feeding success. As cash-crops such as cocoa and oil-palm are much in demand, the remaining forest comes under more and more pressure.
Broadbills are a little-known family of tropical forest-dwellers, with 11 species in Asia, and 4 in Africa. This Rufous-sided Broadbill is a sparrow-sized bird that we enjoyed watching as it made short display-flights, noisily vibrating its wings, before returning to the same perch and giving the photographers another chance. All broadbills construct large, domed, untidy hanging nests with a side entrance. This species lays 2 eggs incubated by the female, although the male stays around to help protect the nest from predators.
March is normally the last month of the dry season in Ghana, but this year the rains began early. In response, many birds were busy with courtship, singing and building nests. These Lesser Striped Swallows returned to the track ahead of us to collect mud for their nests, which they often place in the porch or veranda of a house, or in the roof of a culvert or bridge under the road. The male has a strange buzzy song in which he can produce two different notes at the same time.
The most sought-after bird on wildlife tours to Ghana is the Yellow-headed Picathartes, sometimes known as rockfowl. These strange creatures return to roost in their mud nests in caves and rock formations. They are hard to observe elsewhere, as they are shy and quiet forest-floor feeders, that disappear at the first sign of disturbance. They feed on a wide range of insects and small reptiles, and attend army ant swarms. Here they feed not on the ants themselves, but on insects disturbed by the ants.
Finally, we enjoyed watching a colony of Orange Weavers near the coast. This male was taking a break from its main activity of nest-building. Weavers are mostly seed-eaters, but this juicy caterpillar took its fancy. The colony was in bushes above water, and the males were involved in both adding to the nests, and displaying to passing females. Each male was hanging onto the side of the globular nest, quivering its wings and making nasal calls which are often described as swizzling.
Ghana is an extremely friendly country where we were always made to feel welcome. Many thanks to my fellow-travelers for permission to use the photos above.
On March 5th I arrived home after six weeks spent on the Akademik Ioffe, where I worked as staff ornithologist for three back-to-back voyages from Ushuaia (in Argentine Tierra del Fuego) to the Antarctic Peninsula. There she is, with one of the zodiacs that we use to ferry passengers from ship to shore. And what's my staff colleague doing to that Antarctic Fur Seal with that tripod? Well, he's just keeping it at a distance since they often make mock-attacks, but they're more bark than bite.
Here we've just landed on Cuverville Island, about to explore the penguin colonies on a fine January day. This is mid-summer, with the temperature in the range of 0 to +3 degrees C. On the Peninsula where the best wildlife is, we're a huge distance from the South Pole, and typical weather conditions on the Antarctic Peninsula are benign. Our passengers are taking a holiday, not a Ranulf Fiennes-type frost-biting toe-blackening endurance test!
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Of course it's the wildlife that draws me back to the Great White Continent again and again - the last of these three voyages was my 13th. We start with two days crossing the Drake Passage, a notoriously rough stretch of water that separates the South American mainland from the Peninsula. Rewards include sightings of the Wandering Albatross, here an old male with a 3.5 metre wingspan. Unfortunately all albatrosses are declining as they are often by-catch in the long-line fishing industry, but there is hope for the future as more ships adopt fast-sinking baited hooks. That way there's less chance for these wonderful seabirds to get ensnared on the hooks and drowned.
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Penguins are the main wildlife attraction on the Peninsula itself. On our first voyage, well grown Adelie Penguin chicks were discovering that life is tough. Here the chick (centre) is wandering through the colony hungry, looking for a parent to regurgitate krill for it. (Krill is a shrimp-like creature which most of the Antarctic wildlife feeds on). It's a mixed colony of Adelies (adult on left) and Gentoos (adult on right). But any penguin wandering through other breeding territories can expect a few pecks.
Chinstrap Penguins also nest in large colonies on the Peninsula. Through my telescope I spy a stranger in their midst: the one with the orange eyebrows is a lone Macaroni Penguin which has spent the last few seasons in one particular Chinstrap colony. Macaronis nest hundreds of miles away to the north in places like South Georgia, but this individual seems to have made itself at home here.
As we made our way along the Gerlache Strait, we watched this 30-tonne Humpback Whale repeatedly lifting its huge weight out of the water in an amazing display of breaching. Humpback numbers have recovered well from the horrors of the whaling days which lasted from the 1900s to the 1960s in these waters. One morning when I was watching from the bridge I counted 25 Humpbacks before breakfast. They migrate south to feed up on the vast krill stocks in the southern summer, and return to tropical waters - off South Africa, Australia and the South Pacific - to give birth. During their tropical months they fast for months, which gives an indication of how rich a diet krill must be.
One of my three voyages was a longer one, taking in a few days in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. South Georgia is a particular favourite of everyone who has ever been lucky enough to visit, as its wildlife riches are legendary. There are vast colonies of penguins, fur seals, and good breeding populations of elephant seals, albatross, petrels, and many other seabirds. One special highlight was watching a King Penguin egg in the process of hatching. Instead of making a nest of stones and laying eggs on the ground (as the Gentoos, Chinstraps and Adelies do), the Kings keep their single egg balanced on their feet. Usually they nest in vast colonies surrounded by non-breeders, so it's difficult to witness an event like this - but we found a very small colony in a remote location where we had a more intimate encounter. South Georgia's wildlife is about to get even richer - if the ongoing rat eradication programme is successful. Rats, introduced inadvertently by the whalers, are responsible for killing vast numbers of seabird chicks.
Finally, here's an Elephant Seal pup. Elephant Seals are remarkable creatures, the males growing to a weight of up to 4 tonnes. They can hold their breath underwater for 100 minutes and dive to a depth of 2 km. The huge alpha males are in their prime from 8-12 years old, when they fight each other for control of a harem of females far smaller than they are. Many thanks to fellow-passengers Jenny Varley, David Sinclair and Natasja von Gestel for permission to use three of the above images.
In 2004, the Welsh Assembly produced Technical Advice Note no. 8 (TAN 8) on the subject of the recommended siting of windfarms in the Mid Wales uplands. More recently, huge subsidies have been made available for wind development, as the British government seeks 'green' energy sources. The result has been an outburst of applications for windfarms all over the Mid Wales hills. Instead of rural wilderness, the remote hilltops around Newtown, Llandrindod Wells, Tregaron and Machynlleth are threatened with an industrial landscape. If the windfarm permissions are granted, the National Grid will build a new line of 45-metre-high pylons from a hub at Cefn Coch near Newtown, through the outstanding beauty of the Meifod Valley, to join the existing 400 kV transmission line near Oswestry.
But there's nothing green about windfarms. The turbines are built abroad and (being so massive) cause traffic chaos as they are transported round the country on the backs of special lorries. They hum loudly and are implicated in the deaths of roosting and migrating birds. Windfarms are also notoriously unreliable, operating at only 20% efficiency. When there's no wind, they produce no energy; yet when there's a gale blowing, they have to be shut down! Surely solar panels, built locally and installed by local businesses, are a better way forward. For more information, contact Montgomeryshire Against Pylons, at
www.montgomeryshireagainstpylons.org
I would like to thank local naturalist and broadcaster Iolo Williams for clarifying my thoughts on this issue.
Here's my last post on the Ornitholidays tour to The Gambia in November. The last two posts have focused on the birds - now it's the turn of the equally colourful places and the folk that live there. (As usual, click on each photo for a larger image). The big change I noticed from previous visits is that it's no longer a place where you get hassled as soon as you set foot outside the hotel. In past years, everyone wanted to be your guide, to show you the birds or the shops or their taxi.
South of the main hotel area, there are magnificent sandy beaches and many small fishing villages, such as here at Sanyang. The fish are caught by nets from these small boats, and landed on the beaches - a great example of a low-impact sustainable fishery. There is always a lurking fear that just over the horizon, predatory trawlers from Spain and other EU countries are hoovering up the fish-stocks that should be harvested by these developing African nations.
Our Gambia tours have always made a point of visiting a school, where we talk to the staff and children, and offer them pens, exercise books and other stationery. Here they are watching their teacher closely as he leads them in a 'Jolly Phonics' rhyme that helps them learn their letters. This school has 500 children, in 14 classes. Since they have only 7 classrooms, there is a morning and an afternoon shift. The two villages that make up the catchment area speak different languages - Mandinka and Fulla - but in school, English is the medium. Many of them walk several miles in each direction to reach school. The children were brilliantly behaved! After they had sang us a song, we attempted to reciprocate: with a chaotic version of Old MacDonald had a Farm, which brought a smile to many young faces.
And what of Gambian politics? Well, nominally Africa's smallest country is a democracy, since it goes through the motion of elections. But only one candidate is allowed to appear on these huge billboards that line the main roads: President Jammeh, who came to power in a bloodless military coup in 1994 and has no plans to let go any time soon. The 2011 posters are still up everywhere, and no doubt will be until the run-up to the next elections. At least the country is stable and peaceful; and infrastructure such as good roads and street-lights has improved greatly in the last ten years. The one area that didn't vote for Jammeh also happens to be the one without a good tarmac main road!
Finally, back to the wildlife. These Square-marked Toads were a feature of the two up-river camps where we stayed, especially below the electric lights where insects gathered. The nights were a breath of fresh air after the daytime tropical heat: December and January are the coolest months in The Gambia.
The Svalbard subspecies of the Reindeer is a common sight in many places. This individual had strayed onto an area of polar desert where food was very scarce. In summer reindeer are happy eating grasses, sedges, and leaves of dwarf willow and birch. In winter, their main diet is reindeer moss, Cladonia, which is in fact a lichen. This they find by scraping away the snow. The lower photo shows an area in the polar desert where a Reindeer has died. Nutrients from its decaying corpse have fertilized the ground, allowing a growth of grasses, moss and saxifrages: and providing a little nourishment for future generations of Reindeer. These photos were taken on the barren island of Nortaustlandet. When the channel freezes over in autumn, this Reindeer will be able to cross back to the more fertile vegetation of Spitsbergen. 
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