Alkefjellet

 After dinner on Sunday, Sheila bundled up well and went for a late Zodiac cruise to the bird cliffs at Alkefjellet (Guillemot Cliff).  This is a nesting spot for tens of thousands of Brunnich's Guillemots, aka Thick-billed Murres. 

The photos aren't great--Zodiacs moving in 3 dimensions make poor platforms for photography in less-than bright conditions.  It was far from dark out, but her camera just wasn't quite up to the task.  Zoom in if you like, but things are pretty blurry.  You can still get a good idea that every single available ledge has a bird on it.  Possibly with an egg or chick...if they are facing the wall, they have young.  If they are facing out, they may have lost either egg or chick.

View from ship...we're headed toward that dark cliff

For anyone interested in such things, the cliffs are Dolerite (aka Diabase), which is akin to basalt, but doesn't form such neat, hexagonal columns. It's an intrusion into limestone, which causes marble to form in the contact zones (contact metamorphosis).  It's not GOOD marble (too full of inclusions), but it IS marble.

There was theoretically a polar bear with cub toward the top of the cliff, but Sheila didn't see them.  She DID see 2 Arctic Foxes lower down. One is right at the VERY top of the snow, pretending to be part of the rocks above.

And there's another one in both of these pics....can you find it? It's quite blurry--moving Zodiac plus moving fox plus low light equals blurry photos.

Is this better?