Wild Kingdom....Arctic Style (day 5, 6/13/12)

Hey Everybody,

It's nearly 1am. We stopped watching for a polar bear to resurface at about 11:30pm. The ship monitors 24/7 and will wake us for a good viewing opportunity. After our two excursions today we head back into the ice to look for bears. We ended up finding three, but all were quite far away. I'm posting two pics anyway :-). The first is not cropped and the bear is "still hunting;" in the second (slightly cropped) the bear's head is raised. Just remember... Look for the stick of butter!

Some of you might remember a TV show called the Wild Kingdom - usually about lions hunting or something. Anyway, we got our own version of the show today - a two-part series! Part 1: Walruses, Part 2: Seabirds. I'm not a "birder," but as many as 200,000 birds were mating & nesting on sea cliffs... The birds were Guillemots and sounded like they are laughing. The real birders do NOT seem to find it funny, but many of us were laughing out loud.

I learned that the big pile of snow (bottom left) is often called a snow mushroom.

So, this morning our shore landing site was Torellneset, a polar desert, on Nordastlandet (the 2nd largest island in Svalbard & covered by two ice caps). It used to be an ocean floor. It also happens to be a popular hub for the walrus. So, we walked toward their spot and found a small group all huddled together. We could see and hear them, but still we were about 1,000ft away.

We left them to hike in the opposite direction a bit when we learned their was an animated group near the anchored zodiacs. Lucky for us a walrus is a very curious creature! They showed no fear and we had an amazingly close encounter with them! 20-30 people standing near the shoreline and the group head straight for the shore and the zodiacs to check us out. Gotta love that!

After that excitement I opted out of the short desert hike - I wanted to go, but I also wanted to take some ice photos. There wasn't time for both. One of the guides was kind enough to grab his rifle and walk with me a bit down the beach so I could take the photos. I would not have been permitted to go alone because a bear could swim to shore (or a walrus, at least today!). The guides are skilled, knowledgeable, funny....and deadly serious about safety. I watched a guide run to chase down a guy who just took off walking.

I also found the first seashells of this arctic trip & have the walruses to thank for that. At lunch, after our close encounter with the walruses, a guide told us that a walrus has the most powerful suction on the world...it can suck a brain right out of a seal's head! Nice mealtime conversation, huh?

Then we travelled to Alkefjellet Sea cliffs in Hinlopen Strait. As I mentioned the birds were hilarious. There were not quite 200,000 of them (best expert guess). The cooler sighting while we cruised up against the cliffs were the Arctic Foxes. We had 3-4 of those depending upon who is doing the counting. This one is carrying a meal (bird).

We then head into the ice pack to look for bears....this was the best view I've had so far....look closely! There are bear tracks and a bear :-) can you believe nobody else saw it?!