Walrus V.2

 Sheila's ankle started complaining yesterday, but with enough ibuprofen, plus ice provided by the ship's bar, we opted for the Zodiac excursion to Kapp Lee, to get another close look at some walrus.  The walking was a bit more strenuous than it first appeared, going up and over a ridge rather than along the beach, but it seems to have worked out OK and was totally worth it for the photos. Not only walrus, but reindeer AND an amazing landscape!

Svalbard Reindeer are shorter, stockier, and have denser fur than other reindeer.

They are also more closely-related to North American Caribou than to other reindeer!

A group of walrus at sea is a "raft of walrus".  There's a different collective noun for them when they are on land.  I present to you "an ugly of walrus"!

Then as we reboarded the Zodiacs to head back to the ship, some curious walrus swam over to look at these odd creatures that were invading their space.  I got a short video, but it won't load over the ship's wifi.  I'll try again when I get home.

Polar Willow

Alpine Bistort

Aaaaahhh!

Oh, OK....never mind.

Polar Bear!

Now that we're both feeling better, we finally made it out on a Zodiac cruise, planning to swing around a small island and then go along the ice wall....the longest ice wall in the Northern hemisphere at 130 kilometers.

But, on the far side of the little island was a polar bear, just hanging out and thinking about raiding the Arctic Tern nests.  The birds were protesting, repeatedly dive-bombing the bear.  Anyway, we stayed just offshore--you're not allowed to approach closer than 300 meters.  All of the Zodiac drivers carry range-finders for this purpose.

He or she is a bit out of focus--moving Zodiac, plus the camera not being certain what the focal point was supposed to be, but you can definitely see that it's a polar bear.

When we finally left the polar bear, we continued on to the ice wall, passing a couple of spectacular icebergs along the way.  One was particularly striking.

The Greg Mortimer through the iceberg

And then after we got back to the ship, there were these really cool "braided" clouds.  I need to track Marcos down to find out more about them.

ICE!

 We finally made it into the pack ice, with a final position of 81°18' N, 22°2' E.

The black lump is a Bearded Seal.  If you zoom in, you can see his whiskers.

We spent the morning just cruising through the ice, spotting lots of seals but no polar bears. 

In the afternoon was a lecture on fog, followed by a chance to go out and walk around on an ice floe. We opted out of that one.

At some point, we did some "citizen science" by participating in a bird count.  You spend 20-30 minutes watching for birds and calling out what you see, checking in with either Gaby or Adrien for confirmation.  Then the total is submitted to EBird, which is run by Cornell University. There weren't many, but no data is still data. A few kittiwakes, some Black Guillemots, a couple of Arctic Terns....and then at the very last second, the elusive Ivory Gull! Sheila technically saw it...at least, she saw the flying white speck that ornithologist Adrien SAID was an Ivory Gull.  Not as satisfying as actually seeing it well enough to identify it herself, but it will have to do for now.